


Rhetoric

by certifiedgeek



Series: Doctor Who: Canonical Tales by CertifiedGeek [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Awesome Donna Noble, Canon Compliant, Drama, Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pain, Psychological Drama, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-03-08 07:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13453359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certifiedgeek/pseuds/certifiedgeek
Summary: Unable to ignore a request for help the Doctor and Donna enter a world where nothing is quite as it appears. Can the Doctor seperate truth from lies and save an ancient race from destruction? Or is there more at stake than he knows? Full of angst and hurt/comfort this is a Doctor / Donna story written for NaNoWriMo 2016.





	1. Part 1: An Unexpected Destination

Chapter 1

"It’s not working!"

Donna Noble’s raised voice carried across the TARDIS console, through the grate and down to the Doctor who was buried, shoulder deep, in a mass of writhing cables. Around them the ship quaked and rattled. Loose pieces of what the Doctor considered collectable items rolled and bounced over the rocking floor landing in inopportune places, making Donna curse. Dust filled the air, shaken from its usual hiding places by the ferocious jerks and twists. Overhead lighting had failed, and with each slow lurch of the TARDIS the uplighters under the metal flooring flashed. A distant tolling bell rang out an ominous warning, spurring the Doctor into frantic action. He wriggled deeper into the bowels of the console, random squawks of concern leaping from his lips.

"You have to make the lever move!" he shouted in frustration. "We’re caught in a riptide in the time streams. Very rare, very dangerous. The TARDIS is being pulled apart."

"I can hear that!" Donna bit back through gritted teeth as she put all her weight into dislodging the stuck lever. Travelling with the Doctor as amazing, flying with him was an altogether more trying experience. Donna found it hard to believe that he knew how to fly his own time machine; they seemed to spend half their lives clinging to railings, beating the console into submission with a hammer, or crash landing somewhere the Doctor had not intended to be.

With a violent shudder the TARDIS sent a blast of horizontal steam from the central console just over Donna’s left ear. She shrieked in anger as another container of collectables opened and shed its contents. Propelled by a sudden roll of the TARDIS a large silver object bounced from the floor to the console and landed an inch from Donna’s nose. She grabbed one of the handles and swung at the lever, clouting the offending control with sufficient force to make the metal object ring hollowly.

Against her predictions the lever moved and the familiar grating sound of the TARDIS dematerialising rose from the consol. There was a loud electrical pop, a pained yell, and one final lurch as the TARDIS dragged itself to safety. The lights dimmed, the TARDIS shook, and a great surge of power swarmed through the central column. Golden clouds of ether seeped from the console, the light so brilliant even through closed eyelids Donna could see the swarm of amber light. The light penetrated her skull, swamped her brain and just as she thought she would pass out it snapped out of existence. A small puff of smoke rose from the column where the Doctor had been working and a dirty, grinning face emerged from the nest of wires.

"Look at the state of you." Donna used her best impersonation of her mother’s condescending tone. She was blinking away the dots of brightness that half blinded her but her eyes were alive with laughter.

The Doctor raked a hand through his electrified hair making a passing effort to calm the wild static energy from his follicles. He looked terribly pleased with himself, wearing his broad grin and sporting his unnecessary spectacles which tilted on the bridge of his nose. He looked, Donna thought, like any other man who believed he had solved a complicated problem single-handed and against the odds. Cocksure and smug.

"I knew I would get us out of there," the Doctor swaggered across the room., "I just had to cross the binary induction cables and…"

"Electrocute yourself," Donna interjected, giving him a hard stare that stopped him in his tracks. "I released the handbrake you doughnut. Seriously, why can’t you buy a can of lubricant, and spray that lever occasionally?"

Donna hefted the silver thing with handles and brought it into her own view, turning it around on itself as she did so. Two hollow eyes with a tear drop at the outer corner of each stared up at her. Taken by surprise she stared at it for a moment wondering if a voice would appear from the small slit of a mouth then. When it remained silent, she waved the terrible find at him, her face alive with indignation.

"And what is this? Is this some alien custom of yours? Keeping the heads of your enemies floating about your ship? What else have you got rolling around in here? A skull? Is that why the store cupboard back there smells so bad? Do you have the real live mummy in there?"

The cyberman’s head flew towards him, a perfect shot for hitting him square in the chest, but the Doctor caught it deftly. His toothy grin dropping a little as he looked into the vacant eyes.

"Alas, poor Yorik…"

"Don’t you dare!" Donna grumbled, her anger dropping now so that all that was left in her voice was feigned frustration. "The last time you quoted Shakespeare you made me sit through the entire works at that colosseum on Abaram Prime. My backside has never been so numb. You didn’t even tell me to bring a cushion."

The Doctor affected a look of academic horror, "It was a classical experience, I thought their interpretation of a Midsummer’s Night’s Dream was inspired."

"They sprayed the audience with fairy dust and performed the entire play in our dreams," Donna complained. "That’s not inspired; it’s down right creepy."

"Suit yourself," he replied with another grin. "Did you use Yorik here to hit the lever?"

Donna nodded whilst making a surreptitious check of the console for damage. "It worked a lot better than whatever you were messing about at under there."

An aggrieved look landed briefly on his face as he inspected the console and the severed head for damage. Seeing none he tossed the lump of inert metal into an open grate, flipped the cover shut with his toe and dusted his hands off on his jacket.

"We’ve stopped," he said. "I wasn’t expecting that."

"Have we landed?" Asked Donna, joining him by the view screen which fizzed like a broken television set. No amount of robust tapping from the Doctor’s open palm was encouraging the device to produce anything other than snow.

A curious frown was forming on the Doctor’s forehead, emphasised by the black residue from whatever had exploded under the console.

"It didn’t feel like we landed," he replied as he checked other dials and displays carefully for any clues, "Did you notice anything?"

"I’ve only been here a few weeks," Donna grumbled, "Not exactly your seasoned traveller yet, am I? How do I know if we landed? Something different happens every time. You’ve crashed us at least twice, landed upside down, and materialised on the wrong side of an airlock. If you’re supposed to be a professional time traveller, you aren’t giving over a fantastic impression."

"Oi!" he protested, giving his companion a playful glare, "I’m not a professional anything. I’m a Time Lord. My people didn’t travel alone, it’s hard work flying a TARDIS when all you have is your own set of hands and a partially trained ape. And, I’d like to point out, when I landed upside down I was still trying to remove the handcuffs from the prison cell in the Orlando Nebula. I had both hands tied behind my back and a rather large bowling ball attached to my ankle."

Donna’s grin widened, "Excuses, excuses."

The wild fizzing of the monitor diminished, and the Doctor turned his attention to their current predicament. He caressed the control panel with a gentle hand and closed his eyes, listening to the song of his TARDIS as she became still and calm. The heart of his ship called out to him and he reached out to her with his mind. She sang in a low, melodic hum,, contented to be wherever they were. At her core the time vortex rippled in golden rivers. Though he could sense its movement, it was distant from him and had been since his last regeneration. It had burned with him in the moments after he had saved Rose Tyler, flowed through his veins, broken every cell and exhausted his body to the point of regeneration. Since that day the Doctor had kept the vortex at a safe distance in his mind and did not wander too close to it when communing with his ship.

With a nudge from Donna the Doctor opened his eyes and followed her gaze to the display which had cleared. Now it showed the world outside, a place rather like earth. In distance people walked by carrying baskets or bags of supplies and a market with small produce stalls was doing a roaring trade. It was a scene of urban bliss, and the kind of planet Donna had been hoping to explore.

"Looks peaceful," Donna said. "Oh and look, there’s a cake stall. I bet they do a nice Victoria sandwich."

"Victoria sandwich?" the Doctor guffawed, then swallowed his humour as he caught Donna’s withering stare. "Oh, right, well then, I could just do with a piece of cake a cup of tea. Shall we?"

"Come on then, Spaceman," his companion slid her hand around his elbow and led him towards the TARDIS door, "You’re buying."

The Doctor toyed with the idea of telling her he had no money, but instead decided that just this once he would buy or trade without argument. Donna had been putting on a brave face since they had left the Oodsphere just a few days earlier. Then there had been the unfortunate misunderstanding that had led to their arrest, and the subsequent handcuffs. Donna Noble was in need of a nice cup of tea and a piece of cake, and just this once he would oblige.

The TARDIS door opened onto the square of a small but busy town. A warm and pleasing breeze moved the air circulating the exquisite and exotic aromas of the market stalls. Sweet pastries, cooking meats and spices fought in a battle to accost the olfactory senses, their strong scents drawing in many customers making the street a hive of activity. The background sound of a happy hubbub filled the air and though the marketplace was small, twenty or more stalls filled the cobbled square. There were tables with homemade household utensils, a cloth merchant hung her wares over the sides of a large cart with bales of colourful cloth stacked high in higgledy-piggledy fashion. Beside the well at the centre of the square stood a hardware merchant, behind him a jeweler and artist, and further back still lay the wares of the food sellers.

 

"Hot breads!" a child’s voice called from behind them, and a small boy walked by with a tray of steaming bread rolls. He paused beside them for a moment. "Best bread in the town, I promise."

Perusing the tray, Donna thought the rolls were very much like the steamed bread her mother’s neighbour, Mrs Li had made for the annual Christmas do at the WI. The anaemic, cloud-like offerings had tasted heavenly with hot and sour soup. Donna had a sudden craving for Chinese food and wondered if there was a place here that would do sweet and sour chicken balls with rice. With no sale forthcoming the boy walked on into the crowd.

"This place is amazing," Donna exclaimed as they walked into the crowds. "Look at all this stuff. I don’t know what to look at first."

"I thought we were going to find cake," the Doctor pouted a little.

"Over there," Donna replied, nudging him so that he followed her outstretched finger.

Like the rest of the market the baker’s stand was busy. A woman, short in stature with hair as red as a London bus, helped her child to select a tasty treat. Though Donna could not hear her words her voice was musical, and she spoke as if singing a lullaby. Her child, a small boy with a snub nose and dirty cheek was staring hungrily at a large cake with blue fruits layered on top.

Donna considered the choice of cakes with a sudden hunger. The selection was immense, and it felt as though the choices went on forever even though the table was small. Like the TARDIS the table was bigger on the surface than should have been possible. The cake with blue fruit stood in front of a row of doughnut shaped offerings, behind them were over sized cupcakes sprinkled with icing and the 1980's favourite from school, silver edible ball bearings. These in particular had attracted the Doctor's attention, and he was helping himself to a blue iced sponge which was as big as his palm. Scouring the table Donna's eyes lighted upon a distinct cream and jam filled creation. The jam, she had to admit, was deep purple, and the cream was... well it was cream not white, but it looked delicious. After a bit of bartering from the Doctor, which involved offering two packs of playing cards for the food, the trader beamed at him and the exchange was agreed.

"So where are we?" Donna asked, her mouth half full of alien Victoria sandwich.

"No idea," The Doctor shrugged munching on his purchase. "Oh, I haven't had edible ball bearings in years! These are brilliant."

"They're called dragees," Donna corrected him, and on the astonished look on his face continued, haughtily, "I did Home Economics^ at school. I'll have you know I was great at baking. Granddad loves my scones. Better than Mary Berry's*, so he says."

"Don't let Mary Berry hear him say that," the Doctor grinned.

They took seats on the square stone wall that surrounded the well at the centre of the plaza. The Doctor crossed his legs to sit in an awkward lotus pose, teetering a little before correcting his position, squashing his cake a little in the process. Donna handed her food to the Doctor to hold while she levered herself up beside him using both hands. She gave him a solid stare as he raised the cake to his nose for an inquisitive sniff and stuck his finger in the filling. With a half guilty look he licked his finger and handed over the damaged remains.

"It's like living with a five-year-old." Donna muttered loud enough for him to hear. Then she grinned. "How come you don't know where we are? I thought you always knew where we were."

"Well," he drawled, keeping his eyes fixed on a distant clock tower, "When I put the coordinates into the TARDIS I know where we are supposed to be going. This is more of a magical mystery tour. We sort of dropped out of the time stream this time, no planning. It's fun, don't you think?"

Donna considered this with caution. They had been travelling together for only a short while. Though Donna had said a few weeks, it was rather hard to tell. She had seen amazing sights, things she would have walked past, oblivious, 2 years ago. She had found the Doctor after a whole year of searching, seen funny little human fat creatures elevated into the sky by a tractor beam, and then there was Pompeii. They had drunk cocktails on an interstellar transport whilst watching two nebulas collide, spent a night in chains in a medieval cell and saved the Ood race from slavery. In days Donna guessed that totalled six, maybe eight... add another week for the unrepeatable Shakespeare experience. Fun was a dangerous concept where the Doctor was concerned.

"As long as we're not being chased by aliens with scissors for hands and there are no giant spiders living in the middle of the planet, yeah, this is fun. The minute we start running for our lives or the police show up we are out of here."

"Killjoy," the Doctor retorted with a wink. "Good choice on the cake though. I could do with a cup of tea now."

"No-one does a cup of tea like Betty at the hairdressers on Elmwood Drive."

The Doctor, however, was not listening. He was staring at the street with a quizzical look on his face. The shoppers were all humanoid if not human. They had two arms and two legs, hands, feet and heads were of normal proportions for earth, their faces were roughly symmetrical. Skin colour varied. More than half were a deep ebony colour, their scalps naturally bald, their eyes a magnificent golden yellow and their clothing the shade of every colour of the rainbow. Others with less exuberant clothes walked among them, simple shifts of grey, their skin almost translucent. These people seemed to slip unnoticed through the crowd, vanishing at points and emerging somewhere improbable. There were children of various ages. Some kept close to their parents while other running amok through the vendors, laughing and ducking out of the way of adults that passed by. There was nothing remarkable about the scene, it could have been a street on any number of worlds, at any point of development.

The street itself had no distinguishing marks. Whilst the well was a solid construction the style was basic and one common throughout the history of the universe. The houses were clad in orange clay, the buildings two storeys high, roofs of deep red tiles. In human terms they could be Mediterranean, but it was a style used on many worlds. Worn cobbles under their feet were smoothed by the footfalls of millions, the once uneven ground made calm by centuries of dirt and wear. In all his years of travel the Doctor could recall no place in space or time that was so indifferent. Perhaps the town was a quirk of nature. Perhaps beneath the surface lurked something darker and more dangerous. Perhaps at any moment the earth would split apart and a ravenous beast would emerge to devour them.

The Doctor held his breath. Waiting. After 90 seconds he shrugged his shoulders and let out the long breath. Uneventful, mundane, but restful.

In the silence between them Donna had taken the time to observe the scene herself. Perception was not something Donna had been known for before she met the Doctor. Earth shattering, universe changing events had occurred right before her eyes but pre-Doctor-Donna had failed to see them at all. Since her almost wedding to the traitor Lance, Donna's eyes had opened and her perspective widened. She did still miss quite a lot of the big important things happened around her but the small things, they caught her attention. Like the fact that every person in the market place had tan sandals. Every single one fastened on the left side of the ankle with a bronze coloured clasp.

"Maybe I should invest in a shoe shop?" her obscure comment made the Doctor blink in confusion. "They're all wearing the same style. I could make a fortune."

"It's a bartering system," he explained, his words calculated and slow. "How much cake would you get for a knock off pair of Jimmy Choo's?"

His dismissive scowl made Donna roll her eyes, and she changed the subject. "Are we going to explore then? We should at least find out where we are so we can write chalk it up as visited, good cake, no drama. Seriously, have you got a catalogue of planets? You know, like the library? It would help keep track of where to visit - and where to avoid."

The Doctor sniffed, his nose wrinkling with displeasure at the idea.

"Too mundane and organised for you?"

"Now you come to mention it," he agreed, hopping up from his seat offering Donna a hand down from her perch.

She ignored his proffered hand and shoved herself clear of the wall and landed with flare, giving him a small look of triumph.

"I'm going this way," she said. "Are you coming?"

Donna stalked off leaving the Doctor bemused but smiling behind her. When Donna had invited herself aboard the TARDIS he had been nervous of having company. Life had been complicated with Martha. If he allowed himself a moment of reflection, he would acknowledge their first months together had been blighted by his recent loss. The final months of Martha's tenure as a companion had been bitter. Martha and her family had suffered because of their connection to him. Becoming his companion was a dangerous occupation and though he knew that alone he himself liable to be reckless he could not bear the thought of breaking or losing another friend.

Having a travelling companion gave him focus. He was not a loner at heart and having someone to share his travels was comforting. And Donna, well Donna, was like no-one he had ever met. For the first time since Canary Wharf he felt alive, and he knew Donna was the reason for that. Her attitude, her sense of humour, her determination and her pure innocence, and most of all he loved her bossy streak. It kept him in line.

Donna strode off into the crowd in search of the local shoemaker and something that might approximate a cup of tea. As she moved further down the street, the stalls thinned out and a row of shops appeared that reminded her of her school trip to York in the 1990's. Quirky little shops with tiny windows lined the narrow row, the doors propped open and the front walls hung with displayed goods. After peeking inside one or two and finding nothing of interest she came upon a curio merchant whose property bulged from floor to ceiling with wooden trays. Each tray contained weird objects, some ancient oddities from prehistory like flints, arrow heads, carved idols and plaited beads that had long since lost their colour. Other trays overflowed with items that, despite looking old and worn, must have been created thousands of years later, ornate musical instruments made of metal, components that looked like they belonged in computers. It was an eclectic mix and one that did not seem to fit with the world outside the shop.

Curious, and determined to find something unusual to show the Doctor, Donna pressed on into the tiny store. Moving passed rows of ordered boxes labelled as mechanical parts for a variety of machines she had never heard of, Donna found herself drawn to a desk at the back of the shop. Mountains of goods reached from floor to ceiling, dimming the light and making every step a matter of careful precision for fear of dislodging one of the stacks of drawers and causing an avalanche. With caution Donna slidled around a large glass cylinder that was twice as tall as her and reached up into the ceiling. Slithering between two rather large statues of Anubis she reached the desk that so held her fascination.

The desk itself was old. Dark wood curled ornately on strong, wide legs. The front contained two side drawers and a folding writing area inlaid with deep red leather. Neat shelves made up the back of the desk and an array of papers spewed from every nook and cranny. In the centre of the desk sat an orange globe. It was perfectly spherical, about the size of a basketball with dotted segments that reminded Donna of a chocolate orange waiting to be cracked. Made of what appeared to be glass an amber glow swirled as the gaseous matter turned hypnotically. Her hand hovered over the ball, fingers trembling with a kind of fear and excitement she loved. There was something special about this item, it drew her in. Her fingers froze millimetres from the surface her gaze caught in the sudden passionate swelling of the cloud within. A silence drifted in around her. She could no longer hear the street outside, the voices of the shop workers next door who had been arguing about a broken plate. Her heart beat in her ears; a constant thud, thud, thud that drummed out thought. The need to hold the globe was almost overpowering.

It was a sudden and deafening crack that broke Donna's concentration. She shook herself, snatching her extended fingers back from the globe as a low, persistent, rumble rose from the ground making curios rattle. The precarious stacks wavered, each unsteady tower pushing against its neighbour until, in a crescendo loud enough to raise the dead, the boxes and their contents tumbled like rain. 

 


	2. Part 2

"You cannot be serious!" Donna growled, pushing against the shaking ground with wobbling legs. "There is no way he landed on a volcano twice!"

Running through the shop, dodging the items that fell from every direction Donna was about the launch herself through the door she heard a sound behind her. Turning she saw a diminutive, twisted figure falling beneath the huge glass tube she had skirted passed only a moment before. The ground was still shaking and more racks of curios were tumbling from their precarious positions. Donna did not hesitate, craning her neck she reached outside the shop door and yelled at the top of her voice for the Doctor then dove back to help the fallen person.

The glass tube was heavy. As it had fallen, it had not shattered and now it pinned the woman to the floor, its weight pressing along her body, crushing her. Donna threw herself to her knees and, without pausing, hunched over the woman's exposed and vulnerable head, protecting her from further injury. As more items fell Donna was sure they would be buried alive but luck seemed to hold out for them. Though they were surrounded by debris no more antiquities fell upon their heads.

Outside the streets were strewn with goods. Roof tiles tumbled like small bombs from above, shattering with sufficient force to send shards into the clay walls. The earth rumbled, cobbles vibrated in the dirt and the air filled with dust. People ran from their shops darting in every direction searching for places of safety where none existed. Some scrambled to huddle beneath door frames, others looked for open ground and finding none spun in panic trying to gather their children and loved ones into their arms.

The Doctor charged down the street calling for Donna skidding on the cobbles and swinging around Gothic street lamps that rocked as the earth moved. He had only taken his eyes off his companion for a moment and she had vanished into a row of shops. There was a sound like an explosion and the building at the end of the row crumpled in slow motion. First the walls bowed with the force of the blast then the roof crumbled in on itself. The windows popped and glass shattered, sharp spikes raining on the street bellow. From inside the house a cloud of smoke erupted as the fire in the grate leapt and caught whatever matter was falling from above. There were other smaller explosions, and the Doctor realised that the shop sold 'tonics', many of which were likely to contain combustible alcohol.

A young man fell through the door of the house into the street carrying a small girl in his arms. He wore an apron smeared in soot and blood, and the girl clung to his in desperation, too terrified to make a sound. Torn, the Doctor scanned the street for Donna but she was nowhere in sight. He swung back to the man, pulling him into the shelter of a building which was not quaking in its footings.

"Is there anyone else in there?" demanded the Doctor, his fingers gripping the man's arm.

The man nodded and gestured to the upper window where a woman was dangling a baby into the street. At the bottom of the row of houses another man was running in their direction. Older, he shared the same narrow face and crooked nose as the man and child at the Doctor's feet. A sense of terrible dread filled him. He had seen that same desperate look before, worn it himself. He reached out a hand to stop the man but knew in his heart there was nothing he could do. The grandfather barged passed the Doctor ignoring his shout of protest and ran into the house before anyone could stop him.

The Doctor turned back to the mother at the window, reaching his arms up towards her stretching as far as he could. All around him he could feel the earth shaking, the building rattling as each brick loosened in its mortar.

"Drop the baby," the Doctor called up to the woman. His voice was insistent but calm. She had to do this, she had to believe in him. "I will catch him, I promise."

Under their feet the earth trembled again and more parts of the disintegrating house collapsed around them. The woman, tears streaming down her face, lowered the child as far as she could her eyes locked in to the Doctor's own, holding him to his word. The baby was not yet old enough to walk. He wailed and wriggled desperately in his mothers grasp, his tiny hands flailing upwards trying to grip her clothing with chubby fingers. The mother did not break her gaze, and the Doctor felt her eyes burning into his soul.

"I promise," he whispered, holding her stare.

Tears pooled in her golden eyes.

And then she let go.

As good as his word the Doctor caught the baby and pulled him like a wriggling rugby ball into his chest and kissing the child on the forehead in relief before swinging around and handing the bundle to his crying father who nestled both the girl and baby in his lap while he stared forlornly at his wife in the window above him.

And then for a moment everything stopped. The front wall of the property buckled. Clay cladding cracked and turned to dust as brick by brick the wall collapsed.

The Doctor turned back to the woman reaching up his arms again, reaching for her knowing in his hearts that her life depended on him.

"Jump, I'll catch you!"

But she met his stare with bravery and mouthed "Thank you" and fell back inside the building.

There was a cracking sound as the wooden apex of the roof snapped.

The Doctor grabbed the merchant and his children, rolling them into the doorway of the house behind them, using his body and coat to shield them all from the flying bricks, mortar and glass that had once been the family home. The Doctor held his breath and for a moment his world turned black.

As the dust settled, and the tremors abated silence descended upon the street broken only by the sobbing of the baby in his father's arms. The air was thick with the smell of burning, clay dust and smoke merged together in a thick smog. The sun, blotted out by the devastation, poked weakly through, particles of dust illuminated in its glare. Groaning the Doctor pushed himself upright lifting his coat from the face of the man and separating the female child from her limpet position at his chest. Kneeling, he checked them for signs of injury, and finding none raised himself to his feet, stumbling a little as he crossed to what remained of the house.

The front door frame remained standing as some kind of ironic monument to what had been there before, and segments of the first floor front wall remained intact. The second floor had all but vanished with only the chimney stack visible above the line of rubble. Around him other's were climbing to their feet. No-one spoke, but one by one they made their way to stand beside the Doctor as he edged nearer to the battered door. With his hearts hammering in trepidation his hand gripped the handle and after a second of hesitation he pushed hard, waiting for the rest of the wall to collapse around him. When it did not the Doctor took a step forward and raised his sonic screwdriver to scan the dark, burning building.

A tall man, his golden eyes dull with pain stepped forward and moved to enter the building but the Doctor arrested him with a hand kindly placed on his arm.

"No," he said softly, "There's no-one alive in there. I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."

There was another slow crash and the front wall fell back on itself sealing the remaining occupants in their tombs.

One by one the townspeople moved on. Several surrounded the father with his children and helped him to walk away from his former home. Other's gathered up the scattered possessions lying in the dirt, handling them with reverence, putting them aside to clean up later. A large group doused the residual flames most of which had been extinguished by the collapse of the building. The Doctor looked on for a moment allowing a single tear to down his cheek. If she had only jumped, he might have saved her. He took a deep steadying breath and walked on. Donna had been in this street. She must be there somewhere.

The purveyor of tonics was the only man to lose his home, at least at first glance. The remaining house though missing tiles and showing great cracks in the cladding had weathered better. An eerie silence descended as people moved away from the scene. The Doctor had never encountered a people that were so silent in the face of tragedy. Humans and their descendants were vocal, so much noise, so much screaming. But these humanoids were very different indeed.

When he reached the door to the curio shop, the Doctor knew instinctively that this was where Donna had gone. It was the type of shop he loved and he was getting to know Donna well enough to realise that she would have been searching for something to impress him with if not something that she could use to prove that he was not the wisest man in the universe. For some perverse reason Donna enjoyed her attempts to prove him wrong, or at least challenge his knowledge. It was all in jest and they both knew it, it was one of the things he was very fond of about Donna.

The door to the shop was open and swinging on only the bottom hinge so it tilted out into the street. With a tentative tug the Doctor pulled the door away and lay it against the wall. The culture of this place seemed to be to treat everything with a certain reverence, he did not want to offend and the door looked like it would be serviceable again, with a new hinge.

"Donna?" There was an edge of fear in his voice and he coughed to clear the tightness in his chest. "Donna? Are you in here?"

There was a cough in the darkness followed by a scuffling and then Donna's voice, choked with dust and more than a little emotion.

Fallen boxes were pushed out of the way until he reached the spot where his companion was kneeling. His initial broad smile dropped as he realised she cradled the head of a woman on her lap, a thin trail of blood trickling along her dark cheek.

"See?" Donna told the woman in a steady, calming tone, "I said he would find us."

The woman was trapped beneath the large glass tube which itself was supporting the weight of half the contents of the shelves. The tube itself had probably saved the woman's life but it would take more than the two of them to get her out.

"I'll get more people to help," his hand squeezed Donna's shoulder, and he felt her shudder at his touch, "I will be right back."

"We're okay here," Donna replied. She had not taken her eyes off the woman, "Gudrun and I will be right here waiting for you."

It took only a few moments for the Doctor to find volunteers and with the same strange silence four men and three women entered the tiny building, the last of them barring his attempts to re-enter the house.

"We thank you," said a scruffy, square built man as he ushered Donna outside, "Please, attend to your friend. Let us attend to our sister."

"We can help," Donna insisted, looking back at the woman on the floor who was surrounded by her own kin. They were carefully moving items out of the way, passing things back and forth without a single word.

The man shook his head, "You have done much and we are grateful. Please, allow us to assist our sister. We shall be glad to welcome you in the inn later after sunset."

A firm but kind push removed Donna from the building and, turning, she saw the Doctor standing perplexed on the other side of the street restrained, gently, by a tall dark man wearing a long orange robe. Seeing Donna the Doctor stood aside and his long legs closed the distance between them swiftly.

"Are you okay?" they asked each other in unison which prompted a small smile on both their faces.

"I'm fine," Donna replied. "I was just trying to keep that woman going until someone found us. What about you?"

Donna looked at the tear track on the Doctor's face and pulled him into a tight embrace which he returned with gratitude. When they drew apart, the Doctor guided her away from the building and back towards the square. The TARDIS would be a safer place to be in the event of another movement of the earth and leaving was something he was giving serious consideration. As they walked, Donna told him of the wonders inside the shop, the trinkets and the strange pieces of alien technology that had filled the drawers and how the whole shop had collapsed around her. In return he recounted his experiences further up the street and Donna's eyes pricked with tears as he skirted quickly over the moment when the mother fell back inside the building. Donna gave him a quick sideways hug as they walked.

"What do you think caused it?" Donna focused the conversation away from the horrors of collapse, "Please don't tell me you've landed us on another volcano."

"It wasn't an eruption, or an earthquake," he replied. "This felt like something different. It was so sudden it was almost like a bomb, but not one I have ever experienced before."

"Do you think these people are in danger?"

He considered then nodded glumly, "Yes, but from what I don't know. I think I would prefer it if you were in the TARDIS Donna. If the ground starts shaking again, it's the safest place you can be."

She shook her head emphatically, "Think again, Mister. I didn't come along for the ride to be strapped into a safety seat every time something goes wrong."

Despite the gravity of the situation the Doctor pulled a grin on to his face and pretended that Donna would not see the expression did not reach as far as his eyes.

"Well we're getting cleaned up first," he replied, "We're both caked in dust and I want to check your lungs for smoke inhalation."

"And we'll meet them in the inn later?"

He nodded, "Yes."

The corner to the square was littered with broken stalls. Picking their way through the debris they turned the corner, and the Doctor stopped dead in his tracks, grabbing Donna's arm to stop her from falling into the crevice that was inches from their feet.

The square had gone, swallowed up by a chasm in the earth. The well on which they had sat and vanished in its entirety, the stalls nearby and presumably their owners also fallen into the bottomless pit. Donna stared across the hole to the place where the TARDIS had stood. There was nothing but broken earth and dust in its place. Donna looked at the Doctor in horror as he led her away from the edge, a shadow of darkness closing over his face.

"It's not the first time I've lost the TARDIS," the Doctor told his companion by way of reassurance. "She has a way of reappearing just when I need her the most."

Donna nodded, her voice absent. The expression on the Doctor's face was no longer grim but his ability to draw up a mask whenever required was something she was beginning to recognise. There was, of course, nothing they could do about the missing TARDIS and the locals did not seem to want their help in restoring order to the place. They had tried to provide assistance, turning over tables, stacking goods, but every time they were politely but firmly shooed away. Frustrated, they surveyed the town instead, walking the streets, establishing the worst damaged areas.

The square had been the epicentre for the blast, and the further they travelled from the site the less damage they found. Every street they walked along was the same, each almost identical to the last with minute differences in shape or colour. The shops gave way to houses and, when they had walked far enough, they found the edge of civilisation. Beyond the towns limits the road stretched off into the distance through scrub land that gave way to desert. Here, at the edges urban life the houses just seemed to stop, without a gradual change to suburbia. They walked past the last house and out onto the desert road, turning back after a few minutes to view the town behind them. The place was built on a grid, quirky but still regimented. Every house finished at precisely the same point in relation to the road, someone might as well have drawn a line in the sand and scrawled "town" and "desert" on either side of it. The strict delineation was bizarre.

"They like their rules," Donna commented, "Everything is so precise. What do you think they would make of abstract art?"

The Doctor's nose wrinkled, "I don't think Dali would sell here."

"Do you know where we are yet?" she asked.

"They don't exactly put up signs for visiting aliens," he said, then licked his finger and held it up to the air.

Donna rolled her eyes, "You might figure out the wind direction that way, but I don't think you're going to identify galaxy, planet and township from a wet finger in the air."

He scowled and wiped his finger on his trousers. Usually that worked, but he was not going to mention this failing to his companion just yet. There was something odd about this place. He had a feeling in his stomach that nagged at him as if he was missing something obvious. The Doctor sat down on the edge of the dirt track road and stared at the town. His head ached, and he felt a little sick. Concussion, or perhaps dodgy cream in the cake earlier. His senses felt out of kilter, nothing he could quite pinpoint, nothing to worry Donna with. He raked his fingers through his hair and screwed shut his eyes.

"You're quiet," Donna sat down next to him, bumping his shoulder with her own. "That's not like you."

"Maybe there's something in the air," he replied, "Have you noticed how quiet these people are? Especially after the... the quake? I've seen a lot of disasters, far, far too many. But they all have one thing in common. It doesn't matter if it's a volcanic eruption, a war, a sinking ship, or a crashing aircraft. People always scream."

"Oi!" Donna shoved him, "I haven't screamed in any moment of terror, Time Boy."

"No!" he exclaimed hurriedly, "I don't mean you. I just mean generally. In every terrible situation there are people who scream. It's a natural reaction for half the population of the universe. But here, not one person made a sound. Only that baby cried, and that was as much about being dropped out of a window as anything else. The boy's father didn't shout, the mother didn't cry out, not one person on that street did as much as swear."

"And that's bothering you?"

He nodded slowly and massaged his temples again. There was a pressure building up inside his skull, it had been barely noticeable before but not it was getting harder to ignore. Thinking was becoming more difficult and cognitive processes were slowing down.

"Are you all right?"

Startled from his reverie the Doctor's eyes snapped to Donna's face and he saw a concerned frown sitting on her forehead.

"Of course, I'm fine," he replied cheerfully, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"No offence, Doctor," Donna said with a softer tone, "But you look like you're going to be sick or something. Your face is about as white as your trainers."

Now she mentioned it he realised he was feeling particularly queasy. Donna was already on her feet and she offered her hand to him to help him rise. He took it out of politeness and did his best not to put any weight into the grip at all.

"The sun is going down," Donna nodded at the sunset, "Let's find that inn and see if they can rustle up something to make you feel better, and maybe a bed for the night."

They walked slowly together, Donna mirroring the Doctor's pace and hovering slightly closer than she would on any other day. After a while the colour began to return to the Doctor's face and Donna relaxed. Satisfied that it had been a touch of concussion the Doctor gave Donna a broad grin. It was hardly the first time he had been knocked out, and the Time Lord physiology was a great one for repairing itself.

The inn was a triple fronted property two streets away from the demolished square. Identified by a large sign painted on its wall the establishment was called "The Ship", a deep blue sea-faring vessel painted above the two doors which led in to the property. For the first time in hours the inhabitants were talking and a quiet hubbub reached out onto the street. There was no laughter after a day like they had had why would there be. The first door on to the street was propped open and a thin light danced on the cobbles, the shadows of the patrons inside hovering in their existence outside the building for a second as they walked by. Walking in Donna revisited her youth and her grandfather's favourite drinking hole. The ceiling was low with black beams at the right height to crack your head on if you were not paying enough attention. Smoke wafted across the room, not the stale odour of Benson and Hedges but the smell of a pipe that Donna had always found warming and welcoming, no matter how unhealthy it might be. The bar was short and ran along the shortest wall in the place. Beside it a flight of stairs lead to the next floor but no light came down from above.

The clientèle nodded courteously to the Doctor and Donna as they crossed the slate floor, pausing in their conversations to say hello or to raise their tankards in a greeting salute. Donna smiled back at them and gave a broader smile to the people she recognised from the shop earlier. The short square man approached them and offered his hand to the Donna first, and then the Doctor.

"You are most welcome here," he said in a quiet gravelly voice, "I am Anton, candle maker and herbalist."

"I'm Donna, and this is the Doctor," Donna shook his hand, meeting his eyes for a second then scanning the room for other's she might recognise, "How is Gudrun?"

Anton's face was grave, "She was injured but not severely. For your help she is most grateful."

"There was a lot of damage," the Doctor was concerned, "Is the building safe?"

"I do not believe anywhere is safe at present, ,"Anton replied, "The earth falls beneath our feet more frequently than it did in my father's day. But come, we shall not talk of this now. You are welcome here to drink and eat with us."

Anton led the way to the bar and indicated to the bartender that drinks were required. The bartender was a large boned woman with a mesmerising swirling facial tattoo that stretched from her broad nose to her ear and down her neck disappearing in her yellow dress. Two tankards of a sweet smelling substance were placed on the wooden bar in front of them. Following the Doctor's lead Donna sniffed the liquid and, when he gave her a slight nod of approval, she took a sip. The drink was warm which came as a pleasant surprise. Not like warm unrefrigerated beer but heated like mulled wine, a hot tea but clear, red, and highly sugared. It melted in her mouth and slid down her throat, lighting a fire in her stomach. A sense of warmth trickled through her veins and Donna knew that though delicious it was also alcoholic. Too many evenings in the Dog and Duck followed by nights on her mother's bathroom floor coached Donna to be careful about drinking this in any kind of hurry at all.

Their host moved away to speak quietly to a companion giving them time to take in their surroundings and observe the locals in their natural habitat. Donna giggled at the thought.

"I feel like David Attenborough," she smirked into her drink and speaking quietly so that only the Doctor would hear her.

His head jerked slightly to the right, and she followed his gaze, two young people were talking closely in a corner, her hand reaching around to his backside. Donna stifled a laugh, and the Doctor smirked, then frowned and placed his hand on Donna's drink.

"What is it?"

"I don't know what it is, but that drink is far more potent than I first thought. I can feel it dulling the extreme edges of my senses. My Time Lord metabolism will burn it off more quickly and I've probably noticed more than you will. Time Lord senses, very powerful things."

"Show off," she muttered and resisted the urge to take another sip.

They talked and watched, letting their drinks sit behind them on the bar untouched. As they watched the locals muttering over their beers, it became obvious that the locals were also watching them.

"Something we said?" Donna whispered.

He shook his head, "No I think it's something we did."

At Donna's quizzical face he continued.

"Hero worship. You helped save a woman, I helped save a child. Strangers in the area, doing good deeds - it creates an impression." He winced a little, "It's better than the first impression I usually create. I show up and people start dying. It has a tendency to set everyone off on a bad footing."

"Now you come to mention it, yeah, I can see how that would work." Donna replied drily. "I'm not really keen on being the centre of attention."

After a few minutes Anton returned and bought with him two women, both dressed in orange robes and unlike the rest of the people had bare feet. The Doctor ducked his head in a short and formal bow and nudged Donna to do the same. There was something regal about the pair.

"Doctor, Donna, please allow me to introduce Ngozi and Hadiya, elders of our town," Anton's head remained bowed in deference.

Ngozi extended her hands to the visitors, her long thin fingers calloused from many years of work. Donna followed the Doctor's example and took her hand lightly, bowing her head again and schooling her face into a sincere expression. Ngozi met their eyes, like many of the others her pupils shone gold, and she smiled. Hadiya, a broad giant of a woman offered the same greeting and then ushered them into the other room where a small table became available as they approached. The guests were invited to sit first before Ngozi and Hadiya seated themselves. Anton scurried to provide drinks then took his leave, scurrying away to the bar where he spoke to the bartender. Donna was almost sure the man was scared of these women.

"Thank you for your hospitality," the Doctor gave one of his best winning smiles and sipped the new drink that had been placed before him. It was different from the last one, hot again, but sour. It made his tongue curl in his mouth and he struggled not to pull a face as he drank the liquid.

Donna, catching his wrinkled nose, tentatively sipped the drink and did her best not to recoil. Hot, neat lemon juice with chilli powder in it would have been more pleasant.

Ngozi gave a slight nod, "We are most grateful for your assistance, Doctor. Your fame precedes you, and your companion. You are well known in these parts."

Surprise flickered across the Doctor's face, "I don't think I've ever been here before."

"It is not necessary to visit a place in order to be known to it," Ngozi's response was enigmatic though her tone was light. "A traveller such as you creates many ripples and attracts many stories. No doubt many of them are not true, but all legends are based on truth. You are a legend to be reckoned with, Doctor."

"Yes, well..." the Doctor floundered, he had a bad feeling about where this was going, "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"And everything we see?"

Hadiya spoke for the first time, a guttural, heavily accented voice that silenced the corner of the room completely.

"They say seeing is believing," Donna offered and wished she had not as the Doctor threw her a look which begged her to be quiet.

"Your companion is wise," Ngozi laughed.

"She's something all right," the Doctor responded and felt a kick in his shin under the table.

"We must come directly to business," Hadiya cut in making Donna realise why Anton was so quick to leave them.

"We require your help," Hadiya continued, "Our world is disintegrating. The quake today is not the first. If you travel to the north, you will find a deserted city with few buildings still complete. Little by little we have been crushed, our population depleted, our world destroyed. This town is all that is left."

"How many people live here?" Donna asked.

"There are around 4000 living souls in this town," Ngozi said gravely, "Once this was a population of millions."

"Do you know what is causing the quakes?" The Doctor leant against the back of the booth, keeping his distance.

Hadiya nodded, "We are under attack. Our enemy is unseen, but they have been heard. They speak to the elders in the night, through our dreams."

The Doctor's face darkened, "What do they want?"

Hadiya's deep voice was cold, "They promise only destruction, pain and death."

"That's a bit odd, isn't it?" mused the Doctor, "An enemy always wants something. Land, property, power, supremacy."

Neither woman responded to the Doctor's pondering. In the dim light of the inn it was hard to see their faces clearly but their eyes bore into the travellers with a rare intensity. Donna shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She was not the sort of person to rely on a sixth sense but there was something about them that made her uneasy. The Doctor gave nothing away but mused over the situation, taking a slow drink from the tankard. This made Donna wary. The Doctor was not known for his silent pondering. He generally preferred to voice his thoughts out loud working himself into a frenzy of pacing and noisy exclamations of genius and stupidity.

Donna could bear the silence no more and lent forward. "What, exactly, is it that you think the Doctor can do to help you?"

"It is said he is a great warrior. A defender of the weak," Ngozi skirted around the demand with a nervous tension.

"We wish him free us from our enemy," Hadiya cut in.

"How?" Donna countered. She had worked in offices for most of her life, political sidestepping was something Donna could spot at a glance. It was one thing she had learnt to avoid at all had all the markings of a management team that disagreed on a process and no-one wanted to come out and say exactly what needed to happen.

Ngozi met Donna's eye for a second, "We believed he would provide the inspiration."

On the seat beside her the Doctor took a long, slow, breath as he felt the eyes of all three woman turn on him.

"Please, Doctor," Ngozi implored softly, "Will you help us?"


	3. Three

And there it was, the word the Doctor could never refuse. Donna sat back in her chair and resigned herself to the cause, watching as he took a deep breath and nodded his agreement.

"My ship fell into the chasm in the square, if this is an attack we have a vested interest in helping you so we can get my TARDIS back. You say there is no other way of communicating with the enemy except through dreams?"

Hadiya nodded, "This is the truth, as we see it."

"Then we need somewhere to stay."

Ngozi beckoned to the bartender who approached with a rigid spine and at a stilted pace.

"You have room for guests, Ebun?"

Ebun spoke in a clipped tone, direct and to the point. "There is the attic."

"We'll take it," Donna said with a gracious smile. "Thank you."

The bartender's nod was less sharp and the curt edge to her voice softened, "I will have a meal and a bed prepared for you."

Ebun turned on her heal and stalked back to the safety of the bar. The Ngozi, Hadiya double act had everyone on edge.

Hadiya rose from her seat, levering herself up from the table with an abrupt thrust of her arms. "We will convene when the sun is at its highest at the council of elders. Anton will show you the way."

Donna gave a broad smile to them both and wished them goodnight with more cheer than the moment required.

The Doctor nodded to each of them but only Ngozi returned the compliment.

They waited until the elders had left the building before speaking. Donna let go a long breath, and the Doctor shook his head, still staring at the door through which they had exited.

"I don't like it," the Doctor admitted, swirling the contents of his mug and watching it spin to the rim in a miniature whirlpool, "There's something off about this whole place."

"Let's eat and go upstairs," his companion suggested. "I don't think we can have a private conversation down here."

As good as her word Ebun provided a hearty meal, a vegetable stew with a crisp suet crust served as a biscuit. Without Ngozi and Hadiya present it seemed the bartender was much more friendly. With a warm and genuine smile she offered second helpings and provided something far less bitter for them to drink. Donna, feeling guilty for having nothing to offer in payment, struck up a deal with Ebun which involved sharing her grandmother's recipes which the bar keeper accepted with enthusiasm. As the drink flowed and night descended the atmosphere in the inn lightened and one or two of the locals even offered to buy them drinks.

After they had eaten Ebun showed them to their room. She apologised several times for the lack of a second bed and placed extra blankets by the door and two jugs of warmed water beside a large bowl on an improvised washstand made from bottle crates and an unpatterned cloth. There was an earthen closet in the garden which terrified Donna. As a child her grandfather's house had an outside toilet and the small room had been teaming with spiders and earwigs. It was not an experience Donna was keen to revisit.

The attic was large, running the full length of the inn below. The sloped ceiling allowed enough space to stand at full height only in the centre. Used for storage more than as guest accommodation crates of good surrounded the doorway and empty glass bottles rattled when anyone walked up the final flight of narrow stairs outside. At the far end was a small window that looked over the street and into a garden with neat rows of vegetables interspersed with flower beds. Ebun kept a tidy, practical house.

Like the washstand the bed was constructed of old crates, upturned and screwed together. The mattress was a large rectangular sack six inches deep filled with straw, the sheets were a rough weave. Several heavy blankets covered the bed and four fat pillows leant against a slatted headboard.

"You're very kind," Donna told Ebun as she bid the woman goodnight and closed the door behind her.

Turning she saw the Doctor sitting on the edge of the bed smiling at her.

"You're good at that," he said with admiration.

"Don't be stupid," Donna retorted, her face flushing. "I haven't done anything."

He shook his head, "You put people at their ease, you made her feel valued."

Donna waved his compliment away with a dismissive flick of her hand. "Years of being a PA will do that for you."

The Doctor restrained a sigh. "Are you okay with this?"

His companion frowned in confusion.

He gestured towards the bed, "I can take the floor if you like."

Donna rolled her eyes at him, "And listen to you tossing and turning on the hard wooden boards? Don't be ridiculous. But if you nick all the blankets, I will kick you out of bed myself!"

He grinned and patted the bed beside him. She walked over and dropped onto the straw mattress with a heavy thud.

"Are you sure we'll get the TARDIS back?" she asked, her voice refusing to give away her fears.

If there was no TARDIS how would she get home? Would she ever see Gramps, or her mum, again? Worse than that, would the collapsing earth swallow them and wipe them out of existence alongside Ebun, Ngozi and Hadiya?

If the Doctor doubted it for a moment he gave no sign at all.

"I can't count how many times I have 'lost' the TARDIS," he said with a shrug, "She always turns up."

"Don't you have a remote control or something? A homing beacon? Surely a race of people clever enough to have time machines can install an automated recovery system."

The Doctor looked a little sheepish, "There is, it's just I never remember to set it."

Shaking her head Donna stood up and disrobed, throwing her coat, boots, belt and sweater into a pile on the floor. She washed her face in the warm water and tried to ignore the Doctor's eyes which followed her every move. When she had finished her ablutions, she turned back to him and glared.

"What?"

He looked embarrassed for a moment, "It's nothing."

"Spit it out, Spaceman."

"I was admiring how practical you are," he said after a long pause. "I've travelled with loads of people but you, you get on with it. Whatever the task, whatever the challenge."

"I get it from my Gramps," she said, lifting the blanket and climbing into bed, throwing her trousers into the pile with the rest of her clothes. "It's the war-time spirit. He passed it down the line. Skipped a generation with my mother."

"I shared a bed with Martha once," he said, "She didn't even take her shoes off."

A laughed erupted from Donna's lips and she clamped her hand over her mouth trying to hold back more merriment.

"I'm sorry, did that hurt your ego?"

"I thought it was a bit odd." Then he confessed, "Of course, I think I mentioned Rose while we were lying there. Maybe that had something to do with it."

"For a 900-year-old you have precious few social skills," Donna told him, "Is it something your people excel at? It's one of your least endearing features."

He sniffed at the insult but took it on the chin. Donna, as usual, had a point.

"I take it there's a plan," she said as he slumped back on the bed next to her.

"If I said there was a plan would it help you sleep?"

"After saying that? No."

They rolled over, so they were both facing the centre of the bed meeting eye to eye a few inches apart. His respect for his new companion was growing by day. Donna was not a person he could placate with half truths and broad smiles. She acted on instinct and her instincts generally good. Lying to Donna was hard, in fact it was becoming almost impossible to lie to her even to save her feelings.

"Ok, no plan," he admitted, looking her in the eye when he spoke, "But in my defence I do work well without one."

Donna could not help herself and a huge smile cracked her serious face.

"You're so funny when you're trying to be sincere," she told him.

"Talk about hitting a man when he's down," the Doctor retorted and he rolled on his back to look at the ceiling, but he knew she was only teasing him. That was something else he liked about Donna.

They led in silence for a while each lost in their own thoughts. Donna tried to get warm but the sound of rain on the roof tiles just a few feet above sent shivers down her spin.

"Is there a connection between rain and things going horribly wrong?" she said aloud breaking his concentration.

He did not turn but a soft sigh preceded his words. "I don't know. You humans seem to get a lot of rain. In my experience I find it often snows when the world is about to end."

"There's something about rain," Donna curled up in a ball turning to face the wall, "It sums up how you're feeling."

The Doctor frowned, lifted himself up and placed a comforting hand on Donna's shoulder. "Do you trust me?"

"I'm travelling through space and time with an alien who gate crashed my wedding to save the earth from giant spiders. I spent 12 months trying to find you. Of course I bloody trust you," her voice cracked a little. "I'm just tired, that's all. And I miss Gramps. I even miss my Mum."

"I'm sorry," sincerity made his tongue thick.

Donna reached up and took his hand in hers. "Come on, time boy, get your kecks off and get to sleep. You need to commune with the aliens in your dreams. You never know, they might be pretty and blonde."

The Doctor flinched and Donna twisted herself around catching a pained look in his eyes before he blinked it away.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry."

A half smile creased his lips, "At least it would be a nice dream."

The Doctor squeezed Donna's hand then clambered off the bed to remove his boots and jacket. Without another word he slipped under the covers and they both lay in silence listening to the rain.

Dreaming was one experience the Doctor avoided wherever possible. In the last twenty years there had been little to make the process of sleep an enjoyable one. The time war was a frequent player in his sleeping mind and the night terrors that accompanied it left him shaking in his bed. One the nights when those dreams chose not to surface other losses nagged at his sleeping guilty conscience. He had not slept with anyone, in any context of the term, in centuries. Even when he had shared a bed with Martha, he had not entered the realms of sleep. That had been an awkward night.

He felt Donna relax into slumber beside him, her breath becoming quiet, muscles losing their tightness. Lying on his back he stared at the ceiling, tracking the patterns in the tiles and plotting the course of the trickles of water that seeped through the odd crack. Against the pillow his head felt heavy and a band of tension gripped him behind the ears. With every blink he slipped further towards sleep until each time he closed his eyes the world around him cracked like an ancient painting. As sleep claimed him his drowsy eyes pictured the roof crumpling out of existence and a million stars shone over his head.

There was blackness at first and he realised that he had entered the realm of dreams. His body was non-existent and his consciousness floated in the darkness, peaceful, content. Without a body there was no weight, the pressure of his worries lifted and he felt his spirit draw strength from the emptiness. The dark was not something to fear, it was something to embrace. Here there was nothing but space. Here he was free.

Gradually other senses returned to him. Light, sick and green filled his vision and his body became present in the dream. His hearts came first, their steady beat anchoring him to conscious thought. He could feel his chest rising and falling with calm breath. Head, arms, legs, fingers and toes came into his awareness he found himself stood on a platform, only two feet square. The platform hung in the air, suspended by an invisible force over a great chasm from which the strange light emanated. He observed the pit with mild indifference, it was a dream, nothing more.

Nothing happened. The Doctor scanned the world around him for any sign of movement but there was none. He could not pace so drummed his fingers on his legs, stuffed his hands into his pockets, huffed at increasing levels of loudness and eventually threw his hands up in the air in impatience.

"Well come on then!" he shouted, "I haven't got all night you know. You wanted to talk, so talk!"

No answer came. He ran his fingers through his hair, clicked his neck around in a circle and scowled.

"Who are you?" he called out. "I'm the Doctor. My friends out there want me to help sort out whatever disagreement you have going on between you. I want to help. No-one else has to die, no-one else has to get hurt."

Silence.

"Well you're not very conversational are you?" he gave up and sat down on the platform, his legs hanging over the edge swinging in open space beneath. "Okay, this is how it is. I'm here to help you and… well I don't know what they call themselves, the others, I'm here to help you and the others work out a truce. I like truces, much better than war. Less death, more trade, great stories. I'm an expert in these things. I guess that's why they asked me. Now, here's the thing. If you want to work towards peace, the first thing you have to do is talk. I know you're out there listening. How about you pop out and say hello?"

Silence greeted him again.

"You're a tough audience," he muttered.

The light was changing, the platform was moving, descending. Peering over the edge the Doctor could make out the outlines of shapes below. An unsettling sensation gnawed at his stomach though he could not make out what he was descending into it felt familiar. He licked his lips and found his mouth was dry and a pricking sensation stung his armpits. Swallowing he got back to his feet.

"Okay, we're getting somewhere now. Not sure where but it's a start. Are you going to tell me your name? We don't have to be on first name terms, it is the first date and…. aargh!"

A sharp pain pierced him behind the right ear striking through his occipital lobe. Vision flashed with stars he fought to keep his footing as he gasped for breath. Both hand flew to his temples, pulling his chin to his chest as he tried to force the pain and the presence from his mind. His eyes swam with tears and he sucked air in through his teeth.

"Not like that!" The words spat from his lips. "You speak to me, you don't steal my thoughts!"

Another bolt of pain shot through him and he was on his knees. All around him images spun like he was at the centre of kaleidoscope spun by a bored child. It was hard to focus as the patterns shifted, aligned and moved on. Fragments of images, images he should recognise but could not see long enough to identify.

There was pressure on him now, pushing down, gripping his shoulders and shaking him. He fought the urge to cry out again, forcing the pain away. The images were important, he had to know why. He wiped his eyes and stared at the images that whipped in and out of his vision. One fell into focus and he clung to it, drinking in the image of his Rose, her face tear stained as he had left her on that beach. Guilt welled inside him but a spark in his brain fired. They were trying to read his mind but they couldn't, his thoughts were too rapid and they were trying to slow them down.

"Oh no you don't!" he forced himself back to his feet and looked straight above him, he had to look anywhere other than the wall of memories that was circling slower and slower. "You forget, this is a dream and there is one sure way of waking up. All I have to do is jump. I'll be awake before I hit the bottom."

The only response was another strike of pain through his skull and he roared in agony, throwing himself over the platform's edge.

"Doctor!"

Donna's hands gripped his shoulders so tight her knuckles were white. Panic filled her eyes as she stared down into his pain contorted face. She was kneeling beside him, he realised, still in the bed they were sharing.

Under her grip Donna could feel the coldness of his skin and the dampness of the sweat that drenched his body. He gasped and struggled for air his hands still clasping his head. Seeing his eyes open and focusing, with surprising strength she heaved him from the pillow and into a tight embrace. He stared at the roof tiles behind her, dragging breath back into his lungs and concentrating on the sensation of her arms around his back, the warmth of her body against his, the smell of shampoo in her hair. She was real. This was real. There was no more dream. The roof tiles spun in front of his eyes and he willed himself not to vomit. Donna would never forgive him for that. As the dream faded, he lifted his arms and returned the hug pulling her against his chest until she thought a rib might break.

"I'm all right," he said, his voice husky as he sat back and leant against the bed head. His face was pale in the moonlight and there was a sheen of sweat still sitting on his forehead. His hair, damp with perspiration, stuck up at odd angles. With his crumpled shirt and youthful face he looked so much like a schoolboy Donna fell into silence.

"Really," he patted her hand. "It was just a dream."

"Pull the other one," Donna countered. "Your conversation with the aliens didn't go so well?"

He shook his head and found the world to be still spinning.

"It was one sided," he managed, before closing his eyes and gritting his teeth against the nausea.

Donna slid out of bed and he remained motionless with his eyes screwed shut. Why did it hurt so much? He ached into his core, his hearts wallowing in fresh grief, drowning in emotions he could not quite control. He forced his breathing to become steady while his hearts pounded. Something cold touched his forehead and his eyes snapped open. Donna was pressing a cold flannel against his skin and holding a mug of water in the other hand. He drank greedily and shivered.

"Thank you," he said, his eyes meeting hers.

She smiled and let him hold her hand for a second before putting the flannel and mug back on the chest at the end of the bed.

"Go back to sleep," she said, climbing back in to bed next to him, "You can tell me about it in the morning. You look exhausted."

When he did not move Donna sat up and leant against the bed head, her shoulder brushing his. He leaned into her and she swallowed her own nerves, holding back a complaint about his breaching of personal boundaries. She had seen the Doctor angry, dangerous, full of sorrow even, but never quite so shattered.

"Tell me about it?" Donna asked, her voice calm and soothing.

"They were scanning my mind," his said, coughing a little to clear the tightness from his throat. "I didn't realise at first. They left in me in darkness for ages and I thought they were trying to figure me out, but they slipped into my memories. It was like they were fishing for something, panning my brain for gold and seeing what dropped out. When they couldn't find what they were looking for they used pain to slow my thoughts, tried to make me focus on something. I only realised what they were doing when they… they pulled out a memory designed to stimulate emotion."

The look on his face told Donna all she needed to know about that memory, his eyes were cold and dark, brow furrowed, lips a thin down-turned line. It was the face of the man who had left her standing in a Chiswick street in her wedding dress 12 months ago. She said nothing and let her neck relax so that her head rested against his. A wave of emotion rose in her and she blinked away a tear before the Doctor could see it. Strange that someone else's pain could be so real.

"What do you think they were looking for?" Donna moved the conversation on.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "Maybe they were trying to work out if I was a neutral party in this negotiation, but I don't think so. They were testing me. Maybe they were looking for something I should know, or something I would have witnessed here but that doesn't feel right."

"Do you think Ngozi and Hadiya know more than they are letting on?"

He nodded. "They were pretty cagey this evening. We'll talk to them in the morning."

He shifted in the bed and turned his head so that they were nose to nose again.

"You go to sleep," he whispered, seeing her eyes struggling to stay open, "We can work this out tomorrow."

Donna wriggled back down under the blankets and curled up into a ball and with her back pressed against the Doctor's side she fell asleep almost at once.

The Doctor hugged his arms across his own chest and laid silently beside her, waiting for the dawn.

When Donna awoke the Doctor was already up and dressed. He was sitting, cross legged, on the end of the bed watching the sun peaking over the roofs of the houses. He looked tired, Donna doubted he had got any sleep, but when he felt her stir he turned and beamed at her with his usual enthusiasm. Donna rubbed her eyes and grumbled at him.

"Are you always insufferably cheerful in the morning?"

"Always," he chirped and handed her a mug of something steaming. "It's not coffee. I'm not sure what it is, but it's fresh and warm."

Donna smiled and took the mug from him, sipping the liquid. He was right, it was nothing like coffee.

"Is there breakfast?" she asked, swinging herself out of bed.

"On the side," he pointed to a plate of sliced bread and sundry items, his nose wrinkling a little. "I wouldn't touch the pink stuff. Tastes like old shoes. Well I say old shoes, I mean old shoes worn by old people, well old shoes worn by old people with verrucas."

Donna rolled her eyes, "I am not even going to ask how you would know what that tastes like."

His grin grew wider and Donna laughed at him. At least he seemed to be more like himself in the cold light of day.

"Any sign of a plan?" she asked as she bit into a chunk of bread and butter.

"Not as such," he replied, "More a loose collection of ideas at this stage. Hadiya wanted us at the Elder's council at noon, you would think if they were desperate for peace, they would be more keen than that. I think we should pop along to the earlier session an have a little listen to what's going on."

"How do you know there's an earlier session?"

"Ebun," he said, lifting a piece of bread from the plate. "She's very helpful. I get the impression she doesn't like the Elders much."

A snort shot down Donna's nose, "I got the impression no-one likes the Elders much."

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, "I got that too."

"Do you mind if I try to find out how Gudrun is while you're poking about?" Donna asked.

He shook his head, "No, in fact it's better that way. I'm not feeling very charitable, the Elders may be less pleased to see me today. Maybe Gudrun will tell you more about this place. There is something strange about it and no-one I speak to wants to say very much at all."

He bounced to his feet and picked up his jacket from the floor where he had left it, "Righty ho then, meet me at the Elder's place before noon. And don't wander too far. This town is hanging on the edge of an abyss, I don't want you tumbling over the edge with it."

The Doctor took off down the stairs with a leap in his step. He called his goodbye to Ebun who was busy cleaning the tankards behind the bar. Out onto the street he hoped the place of the Elders was easy to locate as Anton was nowhere in sight. It was still early in the morning and the sun was big, yellow and cool in the sky. There were no clouds but a thin silvery haze rested on the rooftops absorbing any fragments of heat the star expelled. The streets were dusty and quiet, the occasional person walked by giving a brief nod of a greeting, but the hustle and bustle of the previous day was no longer evident. He wondered where they would put the stalls that had once stood on the square and how many traders would risk the collapsing streets.

In the tranquillity of the morning the beautiful simplicity of the town became more clear. Every building had been built to a plan, each house or shop made to be the same as the next but they flowed into one another like a painting. The dirt tracks was clean, no refuse littered any of the alleys, not even the darkest, narrowest passageways that slipped between properties and in to back doors.

The Elder's Chambers were on one of the main streets, set back from the road by a long flight of steps that had an air of pretentiousness about them. A worn path cut into the steps and lead to the front door which was propped open by a carved wooden block, a giant door wedge shaped as a tree. Stylized flowers were carved into the dark wood and there was a mechanical latch, something the Doctor had not seen on any other building he had passed. He walked passed the open door without hesitating and peered into the darkness of the interior. There was no one about, but a broom leant against the far wall and a dustpan sat next to it. The cleaner was up, even if the Elders were having a lie in.

The long corridor unlike most places of power had no paintings on the wall. There were no trophy cupboards, no coats of arms, no list of exalted members carved on wooden plinths. The walls were bare save for a coat of whitewash that had been applied without care some time ago and was yellowing at the edges. A narrow door half way down one side of the corridor was closed tight. The Doctor opened the door a crack and peered around the edge. Two rows of beds lined the walls and soft snoring rose from the bed at the far end. The Elders lived and worked in the council chambers.

He closed the door without a sound and strode on to the big doors at the end of the hall. These were partially open, a large seal across the two split in the middle and an orange glow slipped through the gap in the doors. Inside there were four long benches facing the far wall against which six sturdy but plain wooden chairs lined up opposite them. Great bookcases lined the walls each one packed with hundred books, great tomes bound in leather and filled with the accounts and records of the town for centuries. The Doctor scoured the shelves wishing Donna was there to make sense of categorisation. He had always been a bit vague when it came to organisation and record keeping. Opting for the shelves furthest from the door where the books were most wrinkled he took one large tome from the shelf. This would take a while.

Donna had lingered in the room after the Doctor had left enjoying a slower start to the day. She ate, enjoying the bread very much, sniffed the strange pink substance and decided to take the Doctor's word it was best avoided, and drank a mug full of water from a new pitcher which had been placed in the room. Opening the window she had shaken off the worst of the dust from her clothes and freshened up before heading downstairs.

With Ebun's help she located Anton who was propped up in a high backed chair in the furthest corner of the bar, hidden by the chairs position and the dim light. In his hand was an almost empty silver tankard, the contents of which dribbled lazily over the rim and on to his crotch. Ebun shook her head in disgust and marched off muttering under her breath. Left alone with the sleeping, snoring, man Donna caste a more critical eye over him. In the darkness of the previous evening she had not noticed but in daylight - as dim as it may be - Donna could see hygiene was not one of Anton's priorities. Dust and grime clung to his trousers and there were grubby fingers marks on his thighs where food grease had been wiped on numerous occasions. A loose fitting shirt hung out at the waistband and looked like it might have been white, at some distant time in the past.

His sleep his face was taught. Thick lines dug in around his eyes and his jaw was rigid. Donna would have been willing to bet he was grinding his teeth even as he slept. Though Ebun's frustration was understandable Donna couldn't help but feel sorry for him, he looked like a man who gained no satisfaction from sleep and drank to find restful repose. She was about to shake his shoulder when Ebun returned with a pail of water, the contents of which she dumped over Anton's bald head in a hail of wild, furious words.

Hung-over, drenched and surprised Anton lurched to his feet and hurled the tankard in Ebun's direction uttering curses before realising that Donna bore witness to the entire proceedings. He flushed and made a vague attempt at straightening his wet clothes, drawing himself up to his full height, which was no more than five and a half foot. His mouth bobbed open like a goldfish as he fumbled for more appropriate words that his still intoxicated brain failed to produce.

Donna smiled at him, "It's all right Anton, you're not the first man I've seen fall asleep with a beer in his hand."

He managed a mute nod and kept one eye on Ebun who, having said her piece, was back cleaning up the bar for tonight's customers.

"I want to visit Gudrun," Donna said, taking advantage of Anton's awkward silence and half functioning brain, "Where will I find her?"

Anton squinted at her, having difficulty focusing his brain or his eyes on anything a all. He found coherent words on his third attempt to speak.

"She returned to her home above the emporium," he stammered, his gravelly voice far more rough than it had been the previous day. "You may find her attended by one of our brethren."

It was a strange choice of word, Donna thought and she recalled that Anton had used a similar term yesterday when escorting her from the store.

"Are you a religious order?" Donna asked, "You say brethren, sister, brother… where I'm from that would mean you were part of a church or a cult."

Anton blinked in confusion and said nothing.

"I don't know of churches or cults, they are foreign words," Ebun called making Donna turn to face her, "We are all of this place, we are sisters and brothers to one another. We are all that survive. It makes us kin. Bound tighter than blood will ever manage. We are one."

With that Ebun stepped through the back door and Anton slunk after her, placing his tankard on the bar as he went. Lovers, thought Donna with a smirk, and set off into the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next installment will be in mid March as it needs a hefty re-write and I don't have a lot of time over the next few weeks.


	4. 4

The Doctor’s shoes squeaked on the polished tiled floor of the council building. He sped read as he paced, face darkening with every book he opened. Amongst the lists of purchases, the building legislations and the statements of population were snippets of information, written in code. He had missed them at first, bored with the mundane discussions of lengthy meetings recorded in excruciating detail. It wasn’t until he spotted an error, scratched out and overwritten, that he realised there was a secret history, written between the lines. 

Snapping shut the latest volume the Doctor dropped the book on nearest bench where it slipped onto a growing pile of discarded material on the floor. A sharp intake of breath at the door caught his attention, and he looked up to find Hadiya stood at the door. Her face was dark with anger and the skin on her fingers made taut by her fierce grip of the tall staff in her right hand. She stepped inside the room and slammed the door closed behind her. The forcefulness of her rage sent a cascade of books toppling from the bench to the floor.

"How dare you desecrate our chambers?" she demanded. Her sandal clad feet slapped on the tiles as she stormed towards him. With her breadth, height and staff combined Hadiya cast an imposing figure but the Doctor, who had faced far more dangerous creatures than her held his ground with his own anger rising.

"You asked for me help," he countered, "Not ONCE did you mention the part you played in this little war."

"It was unnecessary," she hissed down at him, particles of spit spraying from her lips.

"Unnecessary?" he exploded, lifting a book from the bench and shoving it into her spare hand, "Read me the bit about genocide. The bit where you destroyed half of your own kind."

He picked up another and thrust it forward. At the same moment the hall door opened again and Ngozi strode in.

"Or how about the part where you wiped out an entire planet to create a buffer zone between you and your enemy?"

The Doctor’s eyes were wide, the veins in his neck protruding as his anger grew. He stepped forward until he was face to face with Hadiya, forced to look up to meet her eyes. 

"How many children?" he demanded, "How many?"

"More than we could count." Ngozi answered from behind him, making him turn. "They were dark times, and it was long ago. Tell me, Doctor, would you judge every race so harshly, condemning them for the mistakes of their ancestors?"

The Doctor’s anger subsided. It was replaced with a darker, personal guilt. He had killed children. He had killed two entire races to stop a war, destroyed the home worlds of others. The wound was still raw, and he shied away from it.

"Are we so different?" Ngozi inquired. "So different from the other races you have saved? From you?"

Her casual tone made him check his own thoughts. Had she read his mind? His dark eyes snapped up and stared at Ngozi, analysing her inscrutable expression.

"Our enemy spoke to you last night?" Ngozi asked the Doctor, her tone level and free from emotion.

Caution made the Doctor tight lipped. "They didn’t say a word." 

Neither woman appeared surprised by his response.

"How about you tell me what is really happening here?" The Doctor suggested, "Because right now nothing about this place, or your war, makes any sense at all."

"I have no intention of justifying our actions to you, Time Lord," Hadiya responded, her voice cool and contemptuous. "Your deeds are well known."

The hairs on the back of his hands prickled, and he flexed his fingers trying to displace the tension that was growing inside him. 

"You asked for my help," he countered in a measured voice, trying to keep his bubbling rage under control. "And yet you sit there refusing to give me any information that would help. I’m not here to perform party tricks and I’m not a mercenary for hire. If you want my help, then you will have to do better."

Hadiya’s golden eyes bore into him but as she opened her mouth to speak Ngozi placed a calming hand upon her arm and interrupted. 

"Perhaps, good Hadiya, it would be helpful if I speak with the Doctor. I am well versed in the oral history of our people. It is far more interesting than the accounts of the Elders Council and the retelling would be far less… messy."

There was a long pause before Hadiya nodded and rose to her feet. She walked to the door like a queen, back and shoulders straight, her pace calculated and steady, each step taken with poise and purpose. When she had gone Ngozi took a long breath and let it out in slow measure.

"You must forgive Hadiya," Ngozi told him. "She has served as an Elder for many years and she does not suffer fools. Even those who only pretend to be foolish."

The Doctor was not in the least bit inclined to forgive Hadiya for anything, the woman was secretive, angry and desperate. Every time she spoke he felt as though he was being told half truths. He said nothing in response to Ngozi’s carefully phrased apology and instead took a seat on the bench, inviting Ngozi to sit beside him. To his surprise the Elder stepped down and took a position close to the Doctor. She crossed her legs and smoothed the fabric of her orange robe ensuring she maintained an air of dignity. 

Ngozi delivered her words with precision, selected by deliberation, not chance. "For 200 generations this place has been our home. We chose a peaceful life and have rejected the scientific developments made by our forebears. What our enemy desires we do not know. We know only that they haunt our dreams and rattles the ground beneath our feet."

"When did it start? You can’t have been at war forever."

“I cannot recall a time when it was not as it is now,” Ngozi replied. “And I am considerably older than I look.”

Another evasive answer. The Doctor rubbed his hand across his face. The headache was back, and a tiredness was growing in his bones.

"How often do the quakes occur?"

"Sometimes daily," she said as she stood, and walked to a shelf on the opposite side of the room. Drawing out a volume that the Doctor had not yet read she turned the yellowing pages until she found the passage she was looking for.

"In the years of peace a man came to this town from another community. He begged the Elders to hear him, and they recorded his words."

She slid the book into the Doctor’s lap and pressed a finger to the start of the paragraph, leaving the Doctor to digest the words unaided.

_"The shadow stretched over the land, reaching out from the pit that opened in the centre of our town. It was a giant hand reaching out of the earth. Everything it touched turned black, the soil, the trees, the people. It dragged them into the pit. I can still hear the screams as they fell. The town was swallowed, nine thousand souls screaming as they fell. I tried to help them, I tried to save them. But there was nothing I could do, so I ran. For all I know they are screaming still."_

"The Elders believed the man lost his sanity," Ngozi spoke with regret, the first real sign of emotion the Doctor had heard. "In no place before had a hole opened as he had described. He had travelled for months before he reached this town and he died within a week, by his own hand."

"When did this happen?" 

"Five thousand years ago." 

The Doctor nodded, still processing the information. When he spoke it was with a sense of doom. 

"And if he is to be believed then this entire town is about to be sucked into oblivion."

 

Despite the events of the day before Gudrun’s shop had survived admirably. The door which the Doctor had pulled from its hinges looked as good as new. With meticulous accuracy the trinkets, oddments and curios that had littered the floor were stacked back into their rightful crates and piled along the interior wall. The shop was still dark and moving through the rows of quirky goods was no easier than it had been the day before. Donna persisted, edging her way through with great caution, keeping her eyes on anything large that might topple and block her path in or out of the store.

Once again Donna felt herself drawn to the back of the shop and she paused in her tracks. What was it back there that had so attracted her? She remembered the desk and the unusual globe she had almost touched when the quake had started. Donna stuck her hands in her pockets and made a promise to touch nothing in the store until she was sure it was safe. Moving sideways like a crab through the narrow doorway that led to the back of the shop she caught sight of an old rocking chair positioned near the desk. In it sat a hunched, petite figure so swaddled in blankets it was hard to see even her face. 

"Gudrun?" Donna called, alerting the old lady to her presence.

Gudrun turned her head and Donna glimpsed her pure white hair and wrinkled face in the semi darkness. A withered hand slipped out from between the blankets and beckoned her closer while a tiny voice said something Donna could not make out. 

"Hi," Donna gave her best, warm smile. "I don’t know if you remember me but I was in the shop yesterday…"

The old lady nodded and smiled. "You are a stranger to these parts, dear Donna. And you are most welcome."

Donna blushed a little, "How are you? I was afraid…."

"That I would die?" Gudrun laughed a shrill little chuckle. Her electric blue eyes glistened with entertainment. "Oh I have survived worse than that in my time. But I am most grateful for your care. It was most pleasing to have a hand to hold while other help arrived. You put yourself at considerable risk for a strange old woman."

Donna smiled, "I’d do the same for anyone. My mother says I’m the patron saint of all souls in distress, lost kittens are my speciality. I once found one up a tree and climbed up to rescue it, only I got stuck and the fire brigade had to get me down."

The anecdote amused Gudrun who chuckled hard enough to develop a cough, and she gasped a little for air. Donna spotted a pitcher and poured water into a nearby glass, handing it to the old lady, steadying her hands as she sipped.

"Thank you," Gudrun patted Donna’s hand. "Please, bring up a chair and sit with me for a while. I should like to learn more about you and where you are from."

In the corner of the room stood another wooden chair, not the rocking variety, but a sturdy framed, beautifully fashioned piece with long arms and a carved back. Placing it to the right of Gudrun, choosing a position which still allowed her to see the exit, Donna sat down.

In her new position Donna could not help gazing at the sphere. Today the artifact stood almost inert, the golden swarm inside held motionless at the core. Intrigued, Donna leaned closer, observing the clarity of the glass and noting that her desire to touch it was much diminished.

Gudrun watched Donna through half closed eyes and smiled to herself.

"You have good taste," Gudrun told Donna, breaking her gaze. "I saw you approaching the globe yesterday before our little drama took place. It intrigues you now, does it not?"

Donna nodded, an uncomfortable sense of unease keeping her focused and inquisitive. "You have a lot of unusual items. Everywhere else in this town seems to avoid technology, but you, you collect everything. I don’t know what most of this stuff is, but it not from this world is it?"

"Oh you are observant!" Gudrun’s delight illuminated her face. "I have collected these items from passing travellers, from bits of debris left from before our time. They fascinate me, and you too I think. My kin sometimes humour me and exchange food for oddments."

"Have many people come here then?" Donna asked, "You know, people not from round here. Tourists? Traders?"

Gudrun shook her head. "Alas, no, you and your Doctor friend are the only visitors we have received in a long time. That is why your presence is so welcomed. It is good to meet new people. You cannot challenge your own existence if there is nothing new in it."

Donna frowned a little, not understanding where the conversation was going. She was getting a headache, it was tightening behind her ears. She reached her hand into her hair and massaged her scalp.

"The Doctor would like talking to you," Donna told the woman.

"And I should very much like to meet him," Gudrun responded. "Perhaps you would join me for supper tonight?"

Donna wasn’t sure the old lady was up to cooking. The blanket had fallen away and Gudrun’s hands now lay, exposed, on her lap. Both were twisted and deformed from arthritis, her right hand curled in on itself so far that only a walking cane was likely to fit into her palm. She reminded Donna of a great aunt she had met once when she was small. Dolly had been a tiny lady with thick white hair and polio stricken hands. 

Once again Gudrun seemed to be one step ahead of her. "Do not let my appearance fool you, I can still rustle up a passable meal, although it will not be to Ebun’s standards. She is a fine woman, her food is renowned in this part of town."

"Her stew was delicious," Donna replied feeling a little vague. "We will join you for supper tonight."

"Good, good," a broad smile crossed her wrinkled face. 

Donna screwed shut her eyes for a second and refocused her thoughts. She had wanted to find out something from Gudrun, what had it been? The globe caught her eye again and this time she could not look away from it, there was something soothing about the glow. 

"Where did you find the globe?" Donna forced herself to ask, still staring at it.

"Beautiful isn’t it? I found it here, in this place, when we arrived. It is a strange curios I admit, and no-one wishes to buy it from me, so I keep it here where it attracts many views but no income." Gudrun’s voice had become a lullaby, soft and sweet. 

"It was different yesterday."

The pain in Donna’s head was getting worse, and she was feeling sick. With her insides squeezing tight, and Donna drew a long breath controlling the desire to be sick. This was important, she needed to pay attention. 

"Was it?" Gudrun’s voice held genuine interest. "Tell me, what did you see?"

"It was swirling," Donna replied, "Like it was alive. I wanted to reach out and… touch it."

A light bulb flicked on in Donna’s head. Something was wrong, something was very wrong, and she needed to get out, now. Donna stood up, hanging on to the chair to keep herself stable.

"Donna, dear," Gudrun exclaimed with concern. "Whatever is the matter? You look as white a sheet."

"I have to go," Donna garbled the words. "I’m sorry."

She staggered through the shop knocking an object or two to the floor and fell out into the daylight with her hand pressed over her mouth, desperate not to vomit in the street. A blinding light pulsed through her skull and the grip behind her ears was excruciating. Using the wall of the shops in the street to guide her Donna knew she had to find the Elders’ council and find the Doctor.

 

The Doctor had begrudgingly returned every book to the shelf stacking them on the old wooden shelves in meticulous order under Ngozi’s watchful eye. He felt like a reprimanded school boy and wondered if she would either cane his hand or make him write lines for desecrating their heritage. Tidying up was not an activity the Doctor had ever been good at. In fact he was certain every companion he had ever travelled with had, at some point, complained about his general reluctance to clear up after himself. Now forced into putting away the mess the Doctor remembered why it was he did not bother with this kind of task. It was boring, and it slowed him down. 

The pieces of the story were fragmented. Though the information Ngozi had shared was plausible he sensed a lie, or an omission at any rate. But no matter how he tried Ngozi would say no more insisting that this was all they knew. He could get no sensible answer to the question of what was said in the dreams. There was no mention in any of the records he had skimmed about where the enemy came from, why it was there, what it wanted or who it was. It was a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing, and no cover on the box. Someone did not want him to put everything together, and he was sure that Hadiya was behind the conspiracy. Ngozi seemed to toe the line but not without her own reservations. If he could meet Ngozi away from the prying eyes of the rest of the Elders, he might discover more.

"It’s a beautiful day," he called over his shoulder to the spot where he knew Ngozi stood. "How about you and I take a walk through the town?"

"It is approaching midday," Ngozi replied. "The Elders will meet in a few moments for meditation and the sharing of knowledge. We had wished for you to join us, but that does not seem wise at this point. Hadiya will be unwilling to humour you for quite some time. Your presence will interrupt our session."

The Doctor shrugged. He had placed the last book on the shelf and turned around to look at Ngozi a big grin on his face as he dusted his hands by slapping them together.

"You could do with a cleaner in here, those books are covered in cobwebs."

His attempts to draw Ngozi out of her shell fell on deaf ears. Her face remained impassive and the only sign she had even heard his words was the slight incline of her head. 

"You must leave now," she said in a firm but polite way and gestured to the door. "If you wish to speak with us again, I would advise you send your companion, or a messenger."

He was escorted from the building by two male Elders who bowed when they entered the room and moved to flank him on either side. He made a courteous nod to Ngozi as he walked by her his shoes still squeaking on the tiles. Ngozi returned the gesture but avoided meeting his eyes until the last second when her golden pupils caught the edge of his vision. He winked at her and she looked away. 

The door to the street shut behind him with a loud shunt of a bolt and the turn of a key. The street was much warmer now, the clay of the buildings absorbing the heat of the sun and holding the heat like giant radiators filling the air with a hot, arid smell. Flaring his nostrils he inhaled, picking up the scents that hung in the still air. A floral perfume wafted down the street from a garden and in one the houses beyond someone was cooking spices on a wood burning stove. The clay smelt hot but most of all he noticed the stale cold stench of fear that emanated from every house in the area. It seemed to come from everywhere, not only the people and the houses they lived in but also the ground, the trees, if he concentrated hard enough he was almost positive that even the sun, at its great distance, exuded the smell. The Doctor’s forehead wrinkled in concentration as he began a slow walk along the street. 

The sun should have warmed his back but there was an uneasy chill in his bones. He stopped periodically and sniffed again, inhaling the scent of a hanging basket of flowers. Pausing to stoke a stray cat that crossed his path he bent low and sniffed its fur. Even the cat smelt of fear. It was acrid on his senses and it was growing stronger. 

A low thud just around the corner interrupted his thoughts. A groan followed, and he broke into a jog. The sand beneath his shoes slid away in a cloud of dust and he skidded to a stop almost on top of Donna’s prone form.

"Donna!" he dropped to his knees, checking her pulse and lifting fluttering eyelid to see her dilated pupils. Only a small slither of her usual green eyes was showing through. At his touch she stirred, her eyes trying to focus on his face but unable to do so. Not recognising his shape his companion struggled to free herself from his grasp but her efforts were feeble and her hands dropped to the floor. 

"Donna, it’s all right, it’s me. It’s the Doctor," his tone was reassuring whilst his hearts raced. "Can you hear me? What happened?"

There was a flicker of recognition on her face and her hand reached for his arm with a resurgence of strength, her fingers grasping at the fabric of his jacket and refusing to let go.

"Good run," she muttered, adding an incoherent warning, "Gold… sphere… light... bright."

The Doctor looked up and down the street, his face turning hard with anger. There was no-one in sight. There was no sound. The whole town seemed to have fallen silent as if waiting to see what would happen next. He opened his lungs and shouted for help but every door remained shut. 

Could he lift her? He suspected he could, but the inn was a long way from there, the Elders were spectacularly unhelpful and no-one nearby would help, if they even existed at all. 

"Donna," he pressed his lips close to her ear. "Donna I need you to listen. I need you to tell me what’s happening."

Her breathing had grown laboured, chest rising and falling in great peaks and troughs. Unable to speak she fumbled for his hand and he gave it to her thinking she sought comfort, but she pressed his fingers to her face and held them there, his forefinger on her temple. 

"It’s all right," he said again, trying to stroke her hair, but she pushed his fingers against her face and his eyes opened in recognition. She wanted him to enter open her mind. 

He knelt over her, feeling the heat of her body as his leg brushed against her arm, and he realised she was burning up. Pressing both hands to her face and he closed his own eyes for a second, focusing and calming his thoughts. 

Entering the mind of a human as not a difficult task, at least it had not been on the times he had tried before, but Donna’s mind writhed in agony and it was hard to make contact. He breathed steadily and thought of a place that would make Donna relax. Planet of the hats, he smiled remembering the hat box she had thrust into his arms when she moved into the TARDIS. With painful slowness her mind focused on the most ridiculous hat he could imagine, his mind projecting a witches hat, curled at the end, in a rainbow colours. There were feathers pointing in every direction, a veil, and corks hanging around the rim. Her subconscious thought critiqued the design and he used it as a gateway, opening the door into her mind. 

Opening his own eyes the Doctor focused on Donna’s screwed up face, watching the signs of strain tense the muscles in her cheeks. He murmured reassuring words and probed the edges of her thoughts.

"Donna, focus on my voice," he said in a low and steady tone, "I am right here with you. Follow my voice. There’s a door in your mind Donna that has been forced open. All you have to do is close it and the pain will stop."

Under his fingertips he could feel sweat breaking through her skin, she was fighting hard, but she was listening, he could feel it. Inside her mind he could see a hallway filled with doors of all shapes and size. Most were shut, one or two hung open a fraction, readily accessed memories, happy places perhaps, a tiny door, no bigger than a cartoon mouse hole in a skirting board was open far enough to allow music to ripple through, it sounded like a party coming from inside. Other doors bore large red letters, the words ‘keep out’ unmissable. Further down the corridor a door, padlocked, bolted and nailed shut made the Doctor hesitate. It was a door repressed memories hid behind and with sadness he wondered what Donna could need to repress with such ferocity. The further he walked down the hall the closer Donna moved toward him. In their joined minds he felt her reach out and take his hand.

A terrible scream rang from the far end of the hall of doors and a beam of brilliant white light blinded them. An attic door, hatch flung open gaped above them, a bolt of piercing light thrusting its way into her mind. Donna recoiled from it but the Doctor held her hand and made her press on. Beneath the hatch the light was unbearably bright. It burnt the cornea of their eyes and the sound of screaming ripped their ear drums like a jack hammer. It was not one voice but of many, so many it was impossible to tell them apart.

"You need to close the door, Donna," the Doctor told her. "You have to do this, it in your mind. I can help but you have to do the hard work."

"How?" she asked, and he felt a wave of relief rush over him. 

"Just reach out," he told her. "Reach out your hand and push the door shut."

She whimpered as the pain from the light and sound increased, but did as he instructed. Stepping forward, she reached out her free hand to close the hatch keeping the Doctor’s hand clenched in the other. The hatch was stiff and the pain so intense Donna found she did not have the strength and though she raised the door half way should could not complete the task.

"You need to use both hands," he said, trying to disengage himself from her fingers. "I will still be here. You can do this."

Through his open eyes the Doctor saw Donna’s face twitch in pain and he willed her to keep going. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw movement on the street and though he wanted to call for help, he knew if he broke contact now Donna might not have the strength to complete her task. 

With reluctance Donna released the Doctor’s hand and reached for the hatch again.

"That’s it," he whispered, "Just a little…."

His words crushed from his chest by the sudden sensation of being rugby tackled to the ground. Thick arms wrapped around his torso and he floundered backwards away from Donna’s semi-conscious body and into a heap on the floor. Someone else’s hands ripped his fingers from Donna’s face and the sudden jolt in the loss of physic contact made him catch his breath in pain. A strong, muscular body held him down and as he fought to release himself he wriggled and squirmed ineffectively, his legs stuck underneath him, and his arms pinned to the floor.

"What the…?" he gasped, his eyes refocussing on his attacker.

Ebun stared down at him, her eyes burning with anger. "You are a fool!"

He shoved her, and she released his arms allowing him to sit up. His face had turned to thunder, a grim mask of anger shielding his fear from her eyes. 

"I was helping her!" the Doctor yelled as he tried to reach back for Donna’s face. If he could just get back to her, there was still a chance.

"It’s a trap," Ebun told him, her words succinct and her tone damning, "Get up. I’ll help you get her to the inn."

He sputtered in anger but Ebun’s face was grim. Her earnest look was enough to convince him she was trying to help. He nodded curtly and hauled Donna to her feet. Between them they carried his companion through the streets, observed by no-one.


	5. 5

Anton had been on hand to help them man-handle Donna up the stairs and in to their attic room. Though Ebun was far stronger than the Doctor had imagined it took three of them to navigate the narrow staircase without dropping his unconscious companion. Bursting through the attic door the three of them placed the human on the bed with care, each of them breathing hard from the effort. The Doctor’s anxious eyes locked onto Donna’s contorted face, aware of Ebun’s furious glare burning a hole in the side of his skull. Anton, a man of immaculate timing, chose that moment to hurry out of the room to refresh the water pitchers.

"What?" the Doctor snapped at Ebun who refused to break her stare. "I appreciate your help, I do. But I don’t understand why you stopped me from breaking her out of the physic lock."

Ebun’s tattoo rippled on her skin as she threw her arms up in the air in frustration, "Men! You’re all the same. You have no insight."

The Doctor looked at her, his jaw dropping and his mouth hanging open a fraction.

"It was a trap. A trap for you. She is the bait!"

The Doctor scowled, "I don’t care what happens to me, I just need to make sure she is safe."

Ebun’s large hands flew into the air in disgust, her arms and fingers spread wide. 

"And you think you could save her?" She tutted, the click of her tongue as good as a lash. "Stay here. I will find something that may bring her round. Do not enter her mind again."

With that the innkeeper strutted out of the room her stocky body barging through the door making it bang against the wall. She tutted all the way down the stairs and even from the attic the Doctor could hear her in the bar, clattering and banging as she searched for whatever wonder drug she might keep for such emergencies.

Trapped inside her mind Donna knew something had gone wrong. A hole gaped in the fabric of her thoughts as the Doctor’s presence ripped from her mind. His absence made her heart beat harder and fear engulfed her throat. The hatch was still before her, the brilliant light pouring through like a police helicopter searching the night. The screaming, the terrible pitiful screaming was deafening. Close the hatch. That’s what the Doctor had said. But the longer she stood motionless the heavier the door became. The light was getting brighter too, and the noise grew louder, like a football stadium full of people screaming for the referee’s blood. 

The concept of time was unfathomable. How long she had been there Donna did not know, but she knew if she did not shut the hatch soon she would never do so. Sucking up all her remaining energy Donna threw herself into the door, pushing it upwards, trying to close the hole that was being drilled into her mind. Donna’s efforts were not enough. The door was almost closed when another explosion of light drove its way through, shattering the door on its hinges leaving Donna’s raised hands clutching the remnants. The light was so bright she couldn’t look into it any more but from somewhere she heard a voice that sounded like the Doctor and it said only one word.

"Run."

Donna spun around, discarding the shattered wood and feeling the splinters ripping into her soft skin. It was so vivid that she gasped at the pain and pulled her hands to her chest. Behind her were the other doors they had passed earlier and beyond them a pure and beautiful darkness. Donna prayed that the darkness would bring her sanctuary and so she ran through the corridors of her own mind, the piercing light lapping at her heels like a flood.

The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed, Donna’s hand held tight between both of his. Impotency did not suit him and his mind raced. He could not lose Donna, not like this. With a soft brush of his thumb he smoothed auburn hair away from her eyes and wondered how angry she would be with him for vanishing. When she woke up Donna would be incandescent with rage. Bruises from the ungallant manner of her transportation, her filthy clothes, the bird’s nest hair style she now sported. On their own they were subjects Donna could rant about for at least an hour. And, he mused, whoever had done this to her would get the tongue lashing of their lifetime. 

The door burst open again and Ebun marched in with a tankard gripped between her hands. She strode across wooden floorboards which creaked with her every step and dropped onto the other side of the bed. Reaching an arm around Donna’s neck she used her solid bicep to support her patient’s head, whilst bringing the tankard to meet raw, chapped lips. The Doctor, still clasping Donna’s left hand in slipped his own arm behind her back to help Ebun.

"She must drink," the woman’s voice was stern but calm, her anger either abated or put on hold.

"What is it?" he asked, watching the brown, foul smelling liquid dribble down the sides of the mug and across Donna’s chin.

"The strongest liquors I have mixed with spices and salt."

"And that will it sever the physic bond?" his was incredulous, it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

Ebun rolled her eyes. "It burns. The physical pain, and the gagging will draw her closer to being awake. It may be enough to pull her back to us."

"That’s it?"

Ebun glowered at him, "You have a better solution?"

"I was working on the better solution before you interrupted," he muttered.

Glutinous brown alcohol filled Donna’s throat. The instinct to swallow drove into her subconscious and a mouthful of the concoction slipped down. Hot spices irritated the soft lining of her mouth and the gag reflex kicked in. Ebun tipped the last of the drink into Donna’s mouth then clamped her jaw shut, tipping her head back. With her other hand Ebun pinched closed Donna’s nostrils, waiting for the moment when lack of air would make her patient swallow the last of the drink. In her hands Donna’s face took on a purple tinge.

"That’s enough!" the Doctor ordered, taking Ebun’s wrists in his hands. Ebun’s grip did not loosen.

 

Donna felt her heart racing. The darkness was getting closer, the doors were running out, and the light was still chasing her. Her throat was burning, she couldn’t breathe. Her chest was on fire. Every step felt like it would be her last. She stumbled, gasping, drowning in air. Donna fell on to her knees, her hands breaking her fall. The light was almost upon her. She was going to die, scared to death, in her own mind. How was that even possible?

No. She thought. No, this is not how I die. I will die an old lady in a rocking chair, with my hair dyed purple and bright pink nail varnish. There would be no dying today. 

Her fingers clenched on the floor and caught on a handle. Donna was sure it had not been there before. As the light approached, she could make out a rectangular shape on the floor, painted blue, with a big, friendly white door knob. There was a sign on a white background on the door itself and as the light brightened further she could read the words.

"Escape Hatch." 

Donna ripped open the door and fell through the opening just as the light was about to consume her.

The Doctor tore Ebun’s hands from Donna’s mouth, shoving her clear. His strength surprised Ebun long enough for the Doctor to vault over the bed and put himself between Donna and the innkeeper.

"I said that’s enough!" he roared. "It’s not working!"

Behind him the sound of Donna’s violent gagging made him turn. He reached out, catching his companion in an awkward, protective grasp as she vomited the vile drink and the contents of her stomach across the bedsheets. She heaved again, her eyes streaming from the burning sensation that consumed her mouth, throat and oesophagus. He kept her steady, pulling her into his chest and pressing his lips into her dust filled hair. She smelt of the strange liquor, vomit, sweat and dirt but he didn’t care. Donna’s arm wrapped around his waist and she clung to him, shaking in every muscle of her body. The Doctor’s eyes were wide and blind. His pulse drummed hard against his ear drums. Across the room he heard the quiet click of a closing door.

As Donna’s shaking abated the Doctor reached for the pitcher of water and helped her to drink. Though she had consumed only a little of the alcohol, it was potent and she struggled to co-ordinate her movements. Slurred words grated from her raw throat, an intoxicated reassurance she was okay. He stripped off the top blanket with care and tossed the bundle off into the corner. Exhausted she did not fight his efforts to remove her liquor stained clothes. She curled up under a new blanket her back pressed against his chest, leaning into his body; taking comfort from his presence. He smoothed her hair with tenderness and by degrees she relaxed into a deep, inebriated sleep. 

Anton appeared later with a plate of food, more water, bed sheets and a simple slip provided for Donna to wear. He managed a nervous smile at the Doctor who had not left his position beside his friend, and the Doctor nodded in return, a small smile on his lips. Anton collected the fouled blanket and clothes without a word and slipped, mouse-like, back out of the room. 

It was dark when Donna woke. Consciousness returned with lethargy. The first thing she sensed was the warmth at her back. An arm draped around her waist, the hand at the end of it holding her own hand with improbable softness. She pried open lead weighted eyes and in the moonlight realised where she was. How she arrived, however, was unclear. One, cold arm lay above the blanket. Cold and bare. Her eyes widened and her body tensed. She was almost naked, save for her underwear. 

The Doctor, feeling the change in her body sat up and Donna felt the chill of the night against her skin. She swung over, keeping her chest covered by the blanket. The swift movement made her dizzy for a second and a memory of vomiting stirred in her brain. Had she been drunk? 

"Feeling better?" The Doctor’s voice, though intending to sound chipper, fell more on the side of rasping. 

"Like I drank a litre of gin, ate a carpet and banged my head on the police van door on the way into custody," she countered. Her voice grated in her raw throat. "But considering the look on your face I think carpet mouth and hangover from hell must be a good sign."

He beamed at her, a lopsided, heartfelt grin. "It’s good to have you back."

When Donna had freshened up and dressed herself in the white slip that had they sat together on the bed, wrapped in blankets, eating the provisions that Anton had left hours earlier. They were silent for a while, an unusual awkwardness between them which neither wanted to investigate. Despite this, they positioned themselves close together, leaning into each other’s shoulder. The lumpy pillows made good backrests and the old grey, military style blankets were adequate protection against the cold. 

The night was quiet. Although it was late, or rather very early, the moon was already descending from its highest point, it felt as though no-one else in the whole town were awake. Though every room of the inn was occupied no one snored, no one scuffed about the wooden floors looking for a night jar. No cats mewed, no dogs barked, no owls hooted. It was an eerie silence and whilst Donna was oblivious to the lack of sound the Doctor was on edge. Inquisitiveness got the better of him and he rose to look out of the window. He blinked and rubbed his eyes as at first he saw only the garden and the moon, but then slowly everything else seemed to flicker into focus. He scowled. The nagging feeling that had been gnawing at him all day was getting stronger. 

"I’ll be back in a minute," he told Donna as he opened the door to their room. 

Donna did not object, there was no way she was going roaming the inn, or the streets, in a someone else’s slip. 

The Doctor snuck down the stairs with the stealth of a cat, skipping the creaky boards and reaching the bar without so much as a scuff of his shoe. The world held its breath. Paused and silent. Though the noise had been rowdy earlier in the evening, the inn now was pristine, tankards lined up on the bar, the fire grate burnt out, cleaned, laid and ready to be lit another day. Opening the front door he stepped out into the street, looking for any sign of movement. The street was empty, the cobbles swept and tidy, curtains drawn at windows where not a single candle or oil light burned. The air was cold but without a breeze. He stuck out his tongue and tasted the atmosphere. There was still the bitter taste of fear lingering in the night. He wiped his hand along a windowsill expecting it to be damp. His fingers came back dry if a little dusty. 

"What are you doing out here?"

Ebun’s voice rasped at him from the door behind. Dressed in her customary attire, it didn’t look as if she had even been to bed. 

"Just getting some air," he said, rather desperate to avoid another disagreement with the woman who had probably saved Donna’s life. 

She shook her head in wonder, "Come back inside. You’ll see nothing out there."

The Doctor obliged and stepped inside the inn once more. Ebun closed the door tight behind him and closed the bolt with a firm thud. 

"I owe you an apology," the Doctor said, giving Ebun his full attention, "You were right about the drink. Thank you for saving my friend."

An apology was something Ebun had little use for and she shrugged it off as if it were nothing.

"Is Donna awake?" she asked, her eyes shooting up the stairs for a second before looking back at the Doctor with a strange expression he could not place.

"Yes," he replied, wondering why she asked.

A grim smile crossed the woman’s lips. She stalked around behind the bar and took out an oil lamp which she lit with a match. Holding the lamp high she illuminated the small bar, casting long shadows of their bodies across the floor. She reached up into the beam above the bar itself and pulled a roll of parchment from inside an old wine bottle that had its neck cut off. Thrusting the parchment into the Doctor’s hand she bent down behind the casks of ale and produced a small bottle that would, on Earth, have held some strong spirit or other. Lastly she picked up a pile of laundry from the counter to her side and, clutching it all to her chest with one hand and holding the lamp in the other.

"There is little time. Perhaps only an hour before the rest of this town wakes from its slumber."

The Doctor followed the curt point of Ebun’s chin towards the stairs and led the way back into the attic. 

Donna was drifting back in to sleep when the door opened and the Doctor strode in. She awoke with a start a brief glare turning into a frown as she read his curious expression. The lamp in Ebun’s hand swung wide, sending long shadows scattering across the floor. Placing a bundle on the floor inside the door Ebun strode across the room to where a convenient hook extended from a ceiling beam. The lamp’s handle looped over the hanger and something crumpled in Ebun’s hand. As the momentum of the lamp decreased and Donna could see the Doctor and Ebun’s faces more clearly. The height of the lamp made the Doctor’s cheeks and nose stand out and hollowed his eyes, Ebun’s dark skin glistened and her white tattoo shone. Both wore dark expressions.

Without waiting for an opening Ebun pulled over a crate and took a perch looking down the bed at Donna and glaring up at the Doctor who was too restless to sit even under the scrutiny of their host. Ebun placed a roll of stained and ancient parchment on the bed, her fingers lingering on it for a long moment before letting go.

"You will be quiet and you will listen." Ebun instructed. "I will not repeat myself."

Donna nodded, confused and concerned. The Doctor opened his hands, gesturing for her to continue.

"Nothing here is what it might seem. We are all made liars by the Elders and you can trust nothing you see, touch, or hear," the woman caste eye to the door as though expecting company. 

"You said what happened to Donna was a trap," the Doctor prompted, "A trap set by whom?"

Ebun scoffed and when she spoke her voice was thick with derision. "You are already in the mousetrap, Doctor. I saved you from an immediate demise. It might have been kinder to let you die, but where there is life there’s hope. Hope for us all. You are in the midst of a war, an ancient war. Far older than the Earth, even older than the civilisation of the Time Lords. We are Aethini. Our race is ancient beyond comprehension."

Though the name meant nothing to Donna, she saw the Doctor’s eyes widen.

"I thought the Aethini were a myth," a thin frown creasing his forehead. "There were stories told when I was a child but they were only fables…"

"You must listen," Ebun interjected with a hiss. "For the sake of yourselves and for the sake of the Aethini you must end this war, once and for all."

"I read the Elders’ scrolls…"

"Lies," she insisted, "A smattering of truth to produce a cohesive reality, everything here is an illusion, Doctor. This parchment contains part of the truth. This bottle…"

Something made the innkeeper hesitate. She looked from the door to the window in the panicked observance of a captured animal. 

"... This bottle contains enough of a sleeping draft for two people to pass into the world of darkness. These are the only two items in my possession that will exist after I am gone. I have held them for an eternity; kept them hidden from the others."

The light from the lamp grew brighter and in the orange glow Donna could make out beads of sweat gathering on Ebun’s forehead. The muscles in her neck and face grew taut, her whole being reeked of desperation and fear. In her short time in travelling with the Doctor, Donna recognised that look. It was the expression of someone who believed they were about to die. Donna sat forward and reached a hand towards Ebun but the gesture was ignored. As the light grew brighter Ebun glanced up at the lantern and a tear formed in her eye. 

"Listen and remember this. You must see through the illusion. It is the only way for you to leave. You must bring peace to the Aethini, Doctor. We have lived so long in fear…"

A trail of orange light slipped from the lamp and swam downwards towards the innkeeper. Donna blinked in puzzlement but the Doctor leapt into action, grabbing Ebun by the wrist and pull her away from the pulsating glow. The light danced around them, avoiding the Doctor but snapping at Ebun like a pack of microscopic piranha. Her face bubbled in a grotesque mask, her skin pulsating, splitting and the light wrapped itself around her body. As Donna looked on pieces of Ebun’s flesh melted. There was no blood and as the pouch of her cheek disintegrated, there was no bone, just more of the strange luminous glow that now seemed to be pouring out of her. The Doctor grabbed for Ebun’s arm in desperation, trying to move her away from the light. His hand slipped through her skin and into her torso which ripped open spilling more of the vicious golden glow into the room. For a second everything stood still, the Doctor’s hand buried in the mass that should have been Ebun’s stomach. His face blanched as he realised there was nothing he could do to save her.

"I’m sorry," he whispered, pain radiating from his dark eyes. "I will end this, I promise."

Donna was not sure if Ebun had nodded her understanding or if she had run out of life. The woman’s head dropped forward, a strangled scream ripping from the last of her lungs and in another moment she evaporated, merging with dissipating swarm of golden mist. The cloud of golden light climbed towards the ceiling and slipped out into the night through the cracks in the tiles.

With the scream still hanging in the air the Doctor was climbing up on the bed waving his sonic screwdriver first at the lantern then at the ceiling where the glow had escaped into the night air. His face was dark and dangerous, Donna could feel the anger at ten paces as he leapt from the bed and threw frustrated hands in the air.

"What, the hell, just happened?" Donna demanded, "Did she just turn into a bunch of electrical impulses?"

"She was already a bunch of electrical impulses," the Doctor snapped. "Her whole body wasn’t one person at all. Every one of those pin pricks of light was a creature, an Aethini."

"She died…" Donna whispered, staring at the spot where Ebun had stood, "It was disgusting… terrible… and she screamed…"

He was already routing through the bundle of fabric Ebun had brought back upstairs with her. Donna’s clothes, laundered and pressed, were there. Ebun had known what she was about to face, and she had wanted them prepared. Tossing the clothes to Donna he ran his fingers through his hair and paced in circles trying to think, to remember. 

The myths of the Aetheni were ancient, no-one ever gave them credence. In the fables he had heard as a child they spoke about creatures of pure energy that existed everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. They were the original spies, the traitors that would inform the adults of bad behaviour. The Aethini of legends were untrustworthy. At the back of his mind a story about the expulsion of the Aetheni from the universe snagged and refused to budge. Like all thoughts at the edge of consciousness the more he reached for it, the further away it slipped. He gripped the hair at the back of his scalp, frustrated with the fogginess of his mind. 

Grabbing the parchment and the small bottle he shoved the latter into one of his deep pockets and spread the former out on the bedspread. The writing was hard to make out, but it seemed to be an account of the Aethini, whether it was the truth was impossible to tell, but Ebun had hoped it to be. He scanned it until he reached the last section which he studied with slow prudence, his countenance growing more angry by the moment. 

Dawn was breaking over the houses and a shaft of sunlight slipped into the room. Donna pulled on her boots, her face still resounding with the shock of Ebun’s demise.

"What do we do now?" Donna asked. "Do you have a plan?"

"What I have, right now, is questions," he growled. "So many questions. We need to have another chat with the Elders. Come on. Don’t wander off. We need to stay together."

Without waiting for her confirmation the Doctor rolled up the parchment, stuffed it inside his jacket and bounded out of the door.


	6. Six

 

"Where are we going?" Donna panted as she struggled to keep up with his furious pace.   
  
"Elders Council," he said, disgust and anger filling his voice in equal measure. "They have some explaining to do."   
  
"It’s dawn!" Donna exclaimed, "They will hardly be sitting in session at this time of day."   
  
"Think of it more like a commune, or a nunnery. They will be up for morning prayers, and if they aren’t I’ll roust them out." 

 

The Doctor hammered tight right around a corner kicking up dirt. Surprised by his change of direction she ran to catch up.

 

The morning light cast long shadows down the street and although the dark spaces between houses could have harboured many villains every alley and path was empty. Like the day before each deserted place reeked of fear. The dust on the street bore no signs of shoe indentations, no curtains were drawn, no lamps were lit. It felt like a dead, deserted world.

 

The Elder’s council, front door bolted, windows shuttered was as silent as the rest of the town. In frustration the Doctor battered the door with an open palm, rattling the wood in its frame and making the chains inside clatter. Donna watched him wide eyed and caught her breath. His passion made her quake, and she still feared  the avenging angel. Judge, jury and executioner.    
  
"Open up!" he bellowed, rattling the handle and pummelling the wood again.    
  
No answer came from inside, the Elders either not present or too scared to show their faces. The sonic screwdriver had no effect on the door and the Doctor moved to a window, withdrawing the bar that sealed the shutters and tossing it to the dirt. Tearing back the wood the Doctor hesitated for a second as the image before him flickered from blackness, to clay and then glass. He raised his hand to break it but held back, frozen in position, his brain clicking into another gear.   
  
"Everything here is an illusion," his quiet wondering turned into a cry of sudden realisation, "Oh… oh… no… no, no, no!"   
  
Donna shot a worried look at him. "What? What is it?"   
  
"I’ve been blind!" he spun on the balls of his feet grabbing Donna’s shoulder so tight she could not shrug herself free. "Donna this is important, where were you yesterday?"   
  
"At Gudrun’s," she replied.

 

"And that’s the last place you remember being?" he was insistent.   
  
Donna nodded. "I was in her back room, we were sitting, talking. There was something odd about the big snow globe on the table."   
  
"Yes?" he urged, his fingers dug into her shoulders a little more and she winced.   
  
"It was more like a globe, you know like posh people have in their drawing rooms, on a fancy desk. Only there wasn’t a map on it. It was dark except for a faint golden glow…"    
  
Donna’s eyes opened wider and the Doctor’s grip released, his hand catching hers.    
  
"Come on," he spun them around and started walking back to the main street. "We aren’t getting anywhere here, let’s see if Gudrun is more amenable."   
  
This time they did not run, but the pace was fast enough. The Doctor refused to release Donna’s hand which made Donna all the more wary. Yes, okay, he was the hand holding type, and she could tell it was as much about comfort for his companion as it was reassurance for himself. She wondered how he ever managed alone with no hand to hold. His face was grim, eyes dark, brows knitted, lips turned into a thin, hard line.    
  
"Come on, Spaceman," Donna feigned a lighter tone. "You know you work best when you think out loud."   
  
Her voice broke his thoughts and a genuine smile crossed his lips. "Do you know why I like you? You always seem to know what I am thinking."   
  
She laughed, "Yeah right, I don’t know a hundredth of what’s going on in your brain, and I don’t want to. I’d like to pretend it was all scientific equations or philosophical thought but I’ve seen the way you play with Lego. Half the time you’re just an overgrown kid wondering who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Superman."   
  
"Superman," he answered without hesitation, "Unless Spidey had Kryptonite in his web, or…"   
  
"Okay, okay," she gave him a playful nudge. "Seriously, the situation is more complex than that…"   
  
"Oh?" he queried, "Is there’s something I should know about Superman?"   
  
"Well… Dean Cain was hot," Donna commented, throwing him a smirk. "No, come on. Tell me what’s going on here. I don’t understand."   
  
"I’m not sure I understand myself, well not everything, but I have some ideas." 

 

Though they kept moving, he shortened his stride and his words made up for the lack of physical pace with their own frenetic speed. 

 

"The Aetheni are a race older than almost everything else in the universe. Legends tell of a… people, let’s call them people… legends tell of a people that have existed since the dawn of time. Created with what you might call the Big Bang, they don’t have a form like you and I do. In Gallifreyan mythology the Aetheni are creatures of the dimensions. They existed in every form of space and time, living as pure energy. That golden glow from the light, the particles that made up Ebun, they are a hive, or a swarm. Together they form Aetheni."   
  
"But they look, well human. Sort of." Donna interjected, confused.   
  
He shrugged, "It was a conscious choice I suppose. Two hands, two feet, fingers, toes, the humanoid body has a lot to offer, dexterity, a degree of robustness, interaction with other species."   
  
Donna was not ready to give up the conversation. There was so much she did not understand. When the Doctor explained anything it was so technical none of it made any sense to her brain. She was only a temp, a Chiswick temp at that. Filing, photocopying, chatting over the water cooler and knowing how to dodge the weirdos from the IT department, that was what Donna knew. Then again half the time when the Doctor was talking to experts they looked at him as though her was talking another language, and that was unreasonably reassuring.    
  
"And they live like this, like, I dunno, 17th century England?" Donna pressed on. "All electricity free, eco friendly? Bit weird for an advanced species."   
  
"There’s a quaint charm to it," the Doctor admitted. "Being humanoid and appearing less advanced makes interacting with the aliens easier. If you walk and talk like the aliens, they accept you. More or less. It’s all about fitting in."

 

Donna decided just this once to hold her tongue. The Doctor might look human, but his behaviour didn’t do a lot to make him fit in.    
  
The street opened onto the remains of the square, the gaping hole a dark pit in the morning’s weak light. Skirting the edge of the chasm they turned into the main row of stores where doors stood closed and shutters remained drawn.    
  
"Who are they are at war with?" she asked.   
  
"Not sure," he said. "The parchment didn’t go in to that much detail."   
  
Gudrun’s shop was closer now. From a distance they could see the shut door and closed curtains, but even from half way along the street a slight movement at an upstairs window gave away the occupant’s less than stealthy observation. The Doctor nudged Donna, and she followed his gaze catching the moment the onlooker stood back from the window and into the darkness of the building.   
  
"We aren’t flavour of the month," noted the Doctor. "Maybe it was something you said."   
  
Donna gave him a look of mock annoyance, "That was Gudrun, it has to be. Though I’m surprised she is nimble enough to climb the stairs."   
  
"Why climb when you can just turn back into a swarm, fly up, and take shape again?"   
  
"Why take the form of an old lady if you could be a fit young woman?"    
  
"Good point," he acknowledged, "Maybe they are stuck in this form until they die."   
  
"Social experiment?" Suggested Donna.   
  
"Maybe they’re in hiding," countered the Doctor.    
  
They were at the front door now. The Doctor had refused to release Donna’s hand as they had walked and now they had reached their destination she could feel the sweat in his palm. It took a moment for Donna to realise it was not his, but hers. Her heart was beating hard and her chest felt as though it was being compressed by an elephant. As intelligent as the Doctor was he was also prone to ignoring the obvious. Oblivious to Donna’s discomfort he rapped on the door, the sound vibrating through Donna’s body. There was no answer. Frustrated, he banged on the door again. It was enough noise to wake century old dead, but the inhabitants of the street were doing an excellent job of ignoring it.   
  
"She is old," Donna reminded him, her voice muted with an unexpressed fear that clenched at her throat. "Give her a chance, eh?"   
  
The Doctor searched his pockets for his sonic screwdriver in his impatience. Donna took a moment to calm herself, walking to the window and peering in through the crack where the curtains did not meet. Through the gloom she could see the outline of the doorway to the back room and if she squinted she could see the globe pulsating with the strange golden glow.    
  
The bolt on the inside of the door was dragged back, not by the sonic screwdriver which was just as useless on this door as it had been on the last, but by the old lady who scowled at the Doctor with piercing, angry eyes. He met her stare, tired of the games. Donna stepped forward, breaking their stares, and smiled at Gudrun using her best fake secretary smile. It was the one she reserved for the businessmen she truly disliked. It was a mask Donna knew how to wear and it formed a strong armour as she swallowed the nerves that screamed at her not to walk back inside.   
  
"Hi," Donna drawled, "I’m sorry we didn’t get back here last night, I wasn’t feeling too well. Do you mind if we come in?"   
  
Gudrun smiled back at Donna and continued to eye the Doctor with suspicion. His tall lean frame and angry eyes loomed over her aged form and she recoiled into herself, leaning hard on the walking stick in her left hand.    
  
"Doctor, this is Gudrun," Donna tried her best to ease the atmosphere. Though she was sure there was something strange about the globe Donna remained unconvinced of Gudrun’s part in what had happened the last time she had been in the shop. She was just an old lady, okay an old lady made from a weird glowing energy, but all the same the rules of Donna’s youth inclined her to respect her elders.    
  
"I’d say pleased to meet you, but I’m reserving judgement at the moment."   
  
Though his response was curt Gudrun nodded a pleasantry in his direction and backed away from the door moving into the depths of the shop at an infuriating pace. The Doctor followed and Donna bolted the door behind them, keeping a respectable distance. Dread welled in her stomach, and though she would never mention it to the Doctor, she was glad he was nearby.    
  
In the poor light of the early morning the possessions that filled the shop towered over them like monoliths. At any other time the Doctor would have bounced around the store like a child, picking up items, fathoming out their purpose, and telling anyone who would listen how brilliant all of it was. Today he walked passed it all, oblivious to any unusual alien technology, his focus on Gudrun and the mysterious globe that was illuminating the back room.    
  
As they passed over the threshold into the old office, the globe buzzed with energy. Donna rooted herself to a spot against the door frame and gnawed her lip as the Doctor approached the item. From an inside pocket he withdrew a pair of dark rimmed spectacles using both hands to slide the arms across his sideburns and behind his ears. With furrowed brow, head cocked at strange angles as he inspected every visible inch of the sphere without so much as letting his sleeve brush the containing glass.    
  
Unimpressed with the proceedings Gudrun sat down in her chair, her slight body falling into the arms of the wooden rocker making the frame creak. She drank from an old china cup, sipping a steaming liquid, her face twisting as if the taste were bitter. All the while the old lady’s eyes never left Donna, and the scrutiny made the human woman shift in the doorway.   
  
When the Doctor had finished examining the globe, he slid the glasses down his nose held a critical look at Gudrun who, after a long pause, returned his stare. She snorted at his derisive look and took another sip of tea pulling the same twisted face as the liquid wrapped its way around her tongue.   
  
"Have you come to judge or to investigate?" Gudrun asked. "Because if it’s the former you should leave now. I don’t have time to waste."   
  
He did not answer her until he had run his fingers through his hair and massaged some tension out of the back of his head.    
  
"Do you know what is going on here?" he asked, his tone conciliatory. Donna could tell he hoped Gudrun’s intentions were honest from the edge to his voice she had heard so many times before.    
  
Gudrun inclined her head a fraction.   
  
"Can you tell me?"   
  
"No," she replied without subtlety, "It is against the rules."   
  
Donna felt the Doctor bristle.   
  
"This isn’t a game, Gudrun," his voice was tight.   
  
"No. It is a war. One we are all going to lose at this rate," she sighed and with an offhand gesture suggested he pull up a chair. "Sit down, you’re giving me neck ache, and I’d like to keep this body pain free as long as possible."   
  
To Donna’s surprise the Doctor did as she instructed. He caught her eye and gave her a quick encouraging smile, pulling a second chair beside him indicating that she should join them. With reluctance Donna took the second chair, glad to be on the opposite side to the sphere which was pulling for her attention again. She reached out and brushed his arm with her hand, nodding towards the globe.   
  
"I can feel it too," he said in his best ‘it’s all going to be fine’ tone.   
  
"You have the scroll?" Gudrun asked ignoring their exchange.   
  
The Doctor pulled it from his pocket with a lacklustre flourish.   
  
"And the flask?"    
  
"Yes," he replied, tapping another pocket on his jacket but leaving the contents inside.    
  
"Good," a smile came to her lips for a moment. "And Ebun is dead?"   
  
Donna nodded, "She turned into particles, like those." She waved to the globe, keeping her eyes away from its brilliance.   
  
"Devoured," Gudrun replied testily, "I hope it was quick. No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know."   
  
Arthritic fingers fumbled to open a small lock on a hidden drawer under the desk. The lock was stiff, and it took all her strength to turn the key. From within the drawer she took a fabric pouch that may once have been a vibrant red. Time had dulled its colour and filled every pore with dust. Now the slim wallet was a dusky, dirty pink. Its seal, a small button, was too much for Gudrun’s bent fingers and she passed the pouch to Donna who took it with trepidation. Careful not to touch the contents Donna opened the button and tipped that was inside on to the flap of the purses seal. A fine strand of silver slid into view, a knotted and delicate chain. The Doctor peered at it with interest and scanned it with the sonic screwdriver before reaching out to pick it up. Gudrun slapped his hand down with the end of her cane and he yelped in pain.   
  
"Didn’t those Academy dons ever teach you not to touch?" Gudrun barked.   
  
She took another distasteful slurp of her tea and for a second her lips seemed to glow with the same energy that was still swirling in the globe at their side. A terrible sinking feeling engulfed Donna’s heart, and she reached out a hand to pull the cup from Gudrun’s reach.   
  
The Doctor’s hand caught her sleeve and her fingers froze half an inch from the cup. She looked at him in panic and he shook his head. There was nothing they could do. Gudrun watched the exchange with gallows humour and laughed at them.   
  
"Pathos," Gudrun was rueful. "It will get you nowhere. Keep your wits about you. That’ll be hard enough when you go inside."   
  
The necklace glinted a tiny reflection of the sphere’s light and Donna slid it back into the pouch handing the sealed bag to the Doctor who found yet more space in his jacket to secure the item.    
  
"I think you better make this quick," the Doctor instructed Gudrun. Sorrow had crept into his eyes, another death to add to all the others.    
  
"You must end this war," Gudrun began, her lips shimmering gold for a moment, "It has ragged for an eternity with no resolution. We are the Aetheni, they are the Aetheni. We are as similar as we are different. They attack, we defend. We attack, they defend. No-one wins."   
  
"Civil war," the Doctor grumbled as he drew his hand across his tired face, "A civil war that has lasted for millennia."   
  
At the frustration in his tone Gudrun met his eye solidly. Now it was not only her lips that were glowing. Her cheeks flushed with the golden aura and her forehead glistened. If the process was painful she made no sign, her focus was clear and her words direct.   
  
"It is not your place to make judgements, Time Lord. Our failings are evident, but so are yours. We ask for your help because we believe your would understand what it is we have to lose. Do not let us be wrong."   
  
Gudrun stared at the Doctor burning him with her eyes, waiting for him to acknowledge his task, maybe even offer his obedience. When at last he nodded she continued, her eyes still not leaving his face.    
  
"The draught in that bottle will render you unconscious for one day. That is all the time you can safely remain in the other place. After that time you will wake and either you will have prevailed and all Aetheni will live, or you will have failed and many, or all of us, will die. The globe on this desk exists here and there. They are the opposite of each other. Shatter one and the other will be destroyed. One cannot exist without the other. Both are collapsing, time is running out."   
  
The golden light shimmered across Gudrun’s skin and rippled through her clothes. Every particle of her existence started losing its cohesive bond. Little by little she was falling apart. Her fingernails dematerialized, the effect trickling up through her skin, into her arms.    
  
"The Elders will try to stop you," she continued, her voice becoming feeble and her lips hard to read as the light began to erase her face. "Do not let them. Keep hold of the pouch. It will lead you home."   
  
Her feet and legs were gone now, her hands and arms were falling away into dust. Gudrun’s chest heaved, a tear formed in her eye and she shuddered, holding on to one more breath.   
  
"Do not fail us, Doctor."   
  
Her final words were so faint they were almost silent. Exhaling one last breath the woman than had been Gudrun burst out of existence in a hail of golden light.   
  
Donna stared at the spot where Gudrun had sat, her jaw hung open and her eyes filled with tears. Dimly she saw the Doctor’s appalled look and his slow movement as he rose from his chair and replaced it in the corner of the room. His movements were stiff, as though his 900 years of existence had piled upon him, his face drawn and his brown eyes mirroring the age of his soul. Donna stood, blinking away the tears unable to take her eyes off the chair where Gudrun had last been. She felt the Doctor’s hand rest on her forearm before sliding down to her wrist.   
  
"She killed herself," Donna’s voice was thick as she spoke.    
  
The Doctor nodded.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because she didn’t have another choice," he said, an unusual monotone hung over his words. "If we believe what Gudrun told us the Elders destroyed Ebun for speaking to us. Digested by the light, her energy swamped by it. For all we know every particle that formed Ebun is now being tortured for what she did. Gudrun couldn’t take that chance. Whatever she drank turned her energy into dust. Every particle in her died."   
  
"She must have been terrified," Donna brushed an errant tear from her own cheek.   
  
"And desperate," he added and silence descended between them.   
  
The Doctor squeezed her hand then let go. Taking the arms of Gudrun’s chair he pushed it back to the far wall and repeated the process with Donna’s seat clearing a space in the small room just in front of the desk. He turned and looked at the globe, rubbing the back of his head as he did. The ache was growing again. There was a significance to it, he was sure, but the meaning escaped him. The contents of the globe spun frenetically, powder kegs of energy slammed into the glass that contained them and exploding like fireworks inside their small prison.    
  
He cleared a space on the desk and placed Ebun’s bottle down on the wooden surface. With his back to Donna he reached into his trouser pocket and wrapped his fingers around the TARDIS key, closing his eyes and pushing away the fears that circled in his mind. Ridding apprehension from his face he cleared his throat, raised his chin and straightened his back before turning back to face his companion.    
  
Donna had banished the tears from her eyes and had made a good attempt at hiding the trepidation she felt. She met the Doctor’s gaze already knowing what he would say and though she wanted to stop him, tell him it was okay, she understood, the words would not form.   
  
"I’m so sorry, Donna."   
  
If he had started in any other way Donna was sure she would have been able to be more brave, but she had heard those words enough times to know they were a kind of prayer, the last hope of this Time Lord.    
  
"No," she found her voice, interrupting his apology. "No, you can say anything but that. You aren’t sorry, because if you’re sorry we are already doomed, and I don’t want to hear that."   
  
His eyes widened and a hint of a smile touched his lips.   
  
"Donna Noble, you are amazing."   
  
There was no hint of irony in his voice and she felt the skin in her cheeks prick with embarrassment.    
  
"There’s no choice," she told him, the words rushing from her mouth. "So no apologies. This is what you do, and now this is what we do. I’ve seen enough of your lifestyle to know what I am getting into every time we open the TARDIS door. I chose this Doctor, maybe even more than you did. So no, don’t apologise."   
  
Donna pulled herself up straight and tall and reached for the bottle on the desk behind him. It was cold to the touch, the glass imperfectly shaped and rough on one side. She took his hand in hers and lowered herself to the floor and he followed suit a look a surprise hanging on his eyebrows as he realised she had collected cushions while he had not been looking. It was a nice touch.   
  
"If, on the other hand, this turns out to be poison then I will hunt you down in whatever afterlife Time Lords live in and make hell your eternity."   
  
"Time Lords don’t exactly die," he admitted with a sheepish look.   
  
Donna glared at him, "Then I will haunt your scrawny backside for eternity instead."   
  
A broad grin broke across his face and he took the bottle from her hands, popping the stopper and smelling the contents. The brown liquid had the unpleasant odour of a durian fruit with hints of honey and gin. He was pretty sure they would wake up with the foul taste clinging to their teeth like mould and that he would need at least ten cups of tea to wash away the taste.    
  
"Well if it is poison I better test it first," he said, raising the bottle in a half salute and knocking back a few mouthfuls with a pained grimace etched on his face.   
  
He gagged, swallowed hard and extended the unappetising bottle to Donna who took it rather less willingly than she had before.    
  
"Not poison then?" she asked.   
  
The Doctor shook his head, "Not as such, but I don’t want you holding me responsible for the after taste."   
  
"Bottoms up," she managed a mirthless cheer and took the rest of the bottle in one prolonged gulp.   
  
As Donna clamped her hand over her mouth to prevent any sudden regurgitation, the Doctor slid the bottle out of the way. His head was already light, and it was hard to keep his eyes focused. Donna’s human cells absorbed the liquor with greater speed.  She blinked as the room span around her, lying down with the Doctor’s help. With her head on one a cushion the edges of her vision turned grey, then black. The Doctor took his position next to her, slipping one hand into the pocket of his jacket keeping his fingers on the pouch containing the silver necklace. His other hand took Donna’s and as the drug took effect they slipped into darkness holding on to one another.    
  



	7. Seven

There was darkness. Black, endless and unforgiving. It stretched in every direction, thick, impenetrable and oppressive. Everywhere was silent. A chasm of emptiness swallowed even the echo of a heartbeat and the sense of self vanished in the absence of physical form.

Was this death? Donna wondered, no afterlife, no reincarnation, just unending darkness? A purgatory of self containment, existing in thought alone? Alone in the thoughts she had spent all her life trying to escape. That was a bleak prospect. How long would it be before the first critical thought took shape? Was this the first critical thought? How stupid had she been to throw herself into that TARDIS when she could have stayed warm and safe in Chiswick? 

That was ridiculous. Warm and safe was synonymous with bored and stupid. What kind of life had that been? No, she had lived more in a few weeks with the Doctor than in the rest of her forty something years. And now she was dead? Was she? She was alone, bodiless, stuck in silence, and within five minutes her internal critic had flourished. How long could she exist without madness claiming her? Would madness be preferable? Donna hated the alone space inside her head, her brain knew too many of her secrets and liked to relieve the worst of them at every opportunity. 

So this was death. Not very impressive. Could do with more colour and a box of chocolates. Maybe someone to keep you company. Not that you can do much chatting when you don’t have a voice. 

Donna paused within her own thoughts. 

"Hello?"

She held her breath. Had she spoken? Was there a sound? 

"Hang on… I’m holding my breath."

"Well, technically you just think you’re holding your breath," came the familiar voice of the Doctor from by her left ear, "And technically you think you have your eyes closed, but the effect works just the same."

Donna opened her eyes to see a world illuminated by a faint golden light which stretched in every direction but seemed to go nowhere. There was nothing to see. Just the Doctor who grinned at her, his face full of excitement in his eagerness to explore this dream realm. 

She swatted the Doctor on the shoulder, "How long have you been stood there?"

His eyes twinkled with amusement, "Long enough to hear you talking to yourself. Death is more impressive, but it doesn’t come with chocolates."

"I thought Time Lords didn’t exactly die," she sniped back.

"Doesn’t mean I haven’t come close a few times," he said with a shrug. 

"Well it’s not happening today," Donna told him. "Are we expecting a welcoming committee?"

The Doctor wrinkled his nose and turned on the spot. A shimmering golden haze swayed rhythmically on the horizon, swirling in waves that rippled to an unheard beat. The Doctor gestured to the moving cloud and Donna’s eyes widened in awe. She had seen nothing so beautiful, and terrifying, at the same time.

"That’s them, isn’t it?" she asked, "The Aetheni, in their natural form?"

He nodded transfixed by the sight, "There must be billions of them. Billions upon billions."

"They are beautiful," Donna murmured in admiration, "And some of them took a solid form instead of living like that?"

He shrugged his shoulders a little at Donna’s expression, "With the lies we have been told, I’m taking nothing for granted."

The swarm moved closer, swinging around the pair as though they were the centre of a Merry-Go-Round. A low, energy filled hum reverberated in the air, shaking the molecules and making their chests vibrate.

"I can feel them," Donna’s amazement overrode her desire for politeness, "How can I feel them? We aren’t really here, we’re unconscious on the floor of Gudrun’s shop."

"It’s a bit… technical," the Doctor’s initial evasive response earned him a persuasive stare from Donna and he relented. "We are in a drug induced dream state. Whilst our bodies are on the floor our consciousness is altered, allowing us access to this place. In every respect we are here. Everything you feel, everything you see and taste and touch, it’s all real. There are some entities that live without a physical form at all, it’s a question of perspective. Think about this, when you hit me we both felt the contact?"

Donna nodded.

"It’s the same thing, you can feel the vibrations of the Aetheni because we are inhabiting the same space. Everything that happens here is just as real as it would be if it were out there where our bodies are."

The swarm stopped a few feet from them and a small gathering, an advanced guard swept forward for a closer inspection. They flew to just outside an arms reach forming a hula hoop sized circle around them, then rose from toe to head and down again. Donna took the inspection to be a scan of some type. 

A terrible realisation hit Donna and she leant over to the Doctor, whispering in his ear.

"Do you mean we could actually die here?"

The awkward pause was enough of an answer, but he nodded anyway and added a soft, "Yup."

"Thanks for the warning," Donna muttered.

There was a flurry of buzzing as the swarm flew at them and the Doctor’s retort was lost. As the tiny creatures gushed forward like water from a broken dam the Doctor grabbed Donna’s hand. His steady, almost rigid, posture encouraged his companion to remain statue-still. The Aetheni passed between them in a wave of blinding golden light before swirling around and coming back for a second pass. They approached from behind and as the wave crashed over them both the Doctor and Donna realised that the tiny beings were running through their skin and investigating every particle of their existence. Donna felt her chest tighten and from the corner of her eye she caught a reassuring look from the Doctor. Donna steadied herself and waited for the moment to pass. 

After several more sweeps from the swirling cloud of alien energy the atmosphere changed. The swarm split into several parts, most them making a long tunnel that stretched further than they could see. A front a rear guard were formed by the remaining creatures, the group being nudging the travellers forward. 

"Follow the yellow brick road," the Doctor grinned, his eyes flashing with glee.

Donna rolled her eyes. Sometimes being with the Doctor felt more like supervising an over enthusiastic five-year-old. 

"You better not start skipping," Donna released his hand in case he got any ideas.

The tunnel of Aetheni was narrow and forced them to walk in single file. The Doctor led the way, casting his eyes over his shoulder every few steps to make sure Donna was still with him. Surrounded by the life forms Donna fought back a bout of claustrophobia and focused on the back of the Doctor’s head. Every so often a small group of Aetheni would break from the walls of the tunnel to swoop between them in a hawk-like dive, a mixture of scare tactics and inquisitiveness. Were these the youngsters of the group,  Donna wondered? Or were they security, checking their bags and pockets for weapons?

Enclosed within the tunnel it was hard to tell how far they walked. Surrounded on three sides by the cloud of gathered Aetheni the concepts of distance, time and even space became meaningless. Even the floor on which they walked defied explanation. The more Donna tried to concentrate and focus on what was beneath her feet the more confused she became. No matter how often she reminded herself that her presence in this world was metaphysical  she still expected to see pavements, grass, tarmac. Anything would have been preferable to a black nothingness. She had the distinct sensation that at any moment she would be devoured by the blackness and wake up on the floor of Gudrun’s shop, the task incomplete. 

The Doctor, on the other hand, revelled in the experience. Whilst he had not skipped down the tunnel of golden light created by the Aetheni he was bouncing in his trainers, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Donna presumed this was to stop him from reaching out and touching the creatures. Each time he looked back to check on Donna a toothy grin beamed at her. This was something new, and it delighted him.

After several hundred paces the Doctor stopped dead and Donna walked into his back with a thud, nudging him forward. He waved his arms to keep his balance and gave her a look of mock annoyance. In front of him the tunnel ended and there was nothing but blackness again. The Aetheni loitered behind them now, gathered as one cloud. 

_ You are welcomed to our existence. _

The loud words formed inside their heads and both Donna and the Doctor winced. There was no voice, but the thought was strong and deep. It echoed through their minds and sent shivers down Donna’s spin.

_ We are the Aetheni. We are as one. We speak as one.  _

Donna pressed her hands against her ears and the Doctor’s face twisted in discomfort.

"I’m the Doctor and this is Donna," his lips formed a winning smile. “We’re here to help, so  could I trouble you to add a little volume control to your thoughts?"

_ Our apologies to you, Doctor, Donna. We have not communicated with your species before. Your mind is more complex Doctor, it has been hard to reach you until now. _

With the projected thoughts of the Aetheni quietened the communication became more pleasant although no less strange. 

"They’re thinking inside our heads, but our heads aren’t here and we’re sort of dreaming," Donna wondered aloud. She felt a grumble of irritation in her mind and realised her words were tactless. "Sorry, I’m a bit new to all this. No offence meant."

A deep rumble of laughter rippled through the air, these Aetheni had a sense of humour. Donna took it as a good sign. 

_ Unlike our kin we do not take humanoid form. We have existed in our current state for millennia. We do not feel it necessary to adopt the physical attributes of other races. We have created your physical appearance in this world for your comfort alone. Only your minds are required.  _

Donna felt even more confused but said nothing. The Aetheni could read her mind anyway and she had a feeling that this conversation could go round in circles for hours and she would still not understand.

"Aethini in the form of a woman sent us to you. She called herself Gudrun."

An unease swept through the cloud, vibrations rippled outwards from the centre and the air chilled by several degrees. The shade of gold changed too, becoming a little darker. Donna held her ground and swallowed her nerves.

_ She was our kin, _ the Aetheni mourned,  _ and the one you knew as Ebun. They sacrificed themselves long ago, breaking with their own beliefs and desires to live amongst the others. _

"Gudrun died," the Doctor admitted, "She poisoned herself rather than submit, but Ebun was… gathered up… by a golden light. Her energy may have survived. There’s still a chance…"

There was another ripple in the cloud.

_ Then there is hope. Our number is few, all you see here is the sum of our people. _

The Doctor nodded his compassion. "All I want to do is stop this war. I don’t care who started it, you’ve been fighting so long it hardly matters…"

_ Lies. _ The Aetheni erupted in a cascading wall of anger, pressing in on their guests.   _ There is no war.  _

He raised his hands in appeasement, "Okay, okay don’t shoot the messenger."

_ All you have been told is lies. Even the ones you knew as Ebun and Gudrun could not speak the full truth. Everything in that existence is a fabrication. _

"What does that mean?" Donna blurted, her frustration finally getting the upper hand. "No-one is making any sense here, not you, not them. Can someone please explain this in words a mere human can understand?"

Donna felt the Doctor’s hand landing on her arm, a gesture intended to reassure and calm. Donna, however, had gone passed the point where a simple appeasement would quieten her frustration and her green eyes flashed wild at the Doctor as she shook clear his hand.

"Come on," Donna prompted, he hands stretching wide, fingers splayed. "What, exactly, is the truth? Does anyone know? Or has it been so long everyone has forgotten who said wait to whom and you’re fighting over something no-one can even remember?"

_ This is not a war,  _ the Aetheni repeated. 

They had lowered their thoughts again and the cool rush of passion from the alien crowd silenced Donna. There was no hostility in their response and the Aetheni did not appear aggrieved by Donna’s outburst. Instead they calmed their movements to almost nothing and an air of peace settled in the atmosphere. Neither the Doctor nor Donna spoke, anticipation hung between them like a tenuous thread of hope.

_ Our species we are telepathic, _ the Aetheni projected in softer tones.  _ We see each other’s minds, we see your minds. We chose not to pry but the connection between us allows this communication.  Out of respect for you we do not extract unnecessary information. The others do not act with such transparency.  _

A slow realisation rose though the Doctor, lifting his face upwards and making his eyes wide. He had doubted the records held by the Elders from the start, but Ngozi had been persuasive. She had read his mind and given answers with enough credence to appease his initial curiosity, keeping him distracted with another, fake, disaster.

"Was anything of the town real?" Donna asked

_ No _ .

An eyebrow raised on Donna’s face, "Well that’s short and to the point."

"Let me help," the Doctor urged, "That’s why you brought us here. There’s something we can do, something you need."

_ We did not bring you here for our own desires. Our kin told us of your presence. They alerted us to the purpose of the others and we brought you here to warn you. This is a great risk for us. _

A long pause held the air as the Doctor and Donna digested this information. 

"What is the purpose of the others?" asked the Doctor carefully.

_ They seek freedom to exist outside, beyond the confines of their universe. We are a divided people, linked by the globes, our continuation depends on both remaining intact. Break one and the other will crumble.  _

“What do you mean both globes? I’ve only seen one.”

The Doctor puffed his cheeks, “Contemporaneous binding spheres, existing in the same place a fraction of a second apart. It’s an old Time Lord trick. Say you have two countries at war and they both have the ability to destroy each other with the press of one button. Place those buttons inside two contemporaneous spheres and bind them. You can’t press the button without breaking the sphere. You can’t break the sphere without detonating both buttons. Which means…”

“Neither side can destroy their enemy without blowing themselves up too. Mutually assured destruction.” Donna finished. “Your lot were a bit smart.”

“Not that smart,” the Doctor countered, his voice low. “Somehow we got caught in one.”

_ The other globe absorbed your vessel  because their origins are shared. It can pass out beyond the confines of the sphere with as much ease. Should the others be inside your TARDIS when that occurs, they will be free.  _

“Leaving you trapped,” said Donna.

“And the others will be free to destroy both spheres, and everyone left inside.” A scowl crept onto the Doctor’s face. “But you told us you bought us here for our safety…”

_ They must board your ship by inhabiting your form.  _

“They what?” Donna demanded.

_ The spheres content cannot be destroyed by exterior forces.  At first they thought to use your ship to remove us from existence but your mind was breached and information taken. They have seen your soul, Doctor. They know you are a man capable of giving or taking life, and they know the price you pay for this power. You will be the weapon of our destruction, but they also know you will not commit genocide a second time.  _

Muscles in the Doctor’s back stiffened. His shoulders grew still and his face took on a darkness that Donna feared may one day consume him. She moved protectively closer, her left shoulder inches behind his right one, her presence visible from the corner of his eye. 

"You know a lot about me for someone who had made efforts not to scan my mind," the observation was flat, accusation withheld. He waited, anticipating disappoint, hoping for something better. 

_ Your mind leaks information.  _ The reply was slow.  _ We touched only the memories that bleed into our consciousness.  _

"And the last time I was here? When you showed me those images?"

_ You have not been here before. _

"And Donna? Where you responsible for what happened to her?" His words were crisp, the tone deathly calm. 

"Doctor…" Donna whispered, her hand reaching across to his arm in a passive restraint.

"Let them answer," he said, his voice lowered.

_ Responsible, yes, in part, though we never intended to cause harm. Donna’s mind was drawn to us, though it should not have been. We could do nothing to prevent this. The other’s used this to trap you. They would have created another reality, played our parts and used your grief to destroy us. _

Donna considered this information, her forehead drawn into a tight frown as the double dealings tied knots in her brain. 

"Can I clarify something here?" she asked, "Because you are all making it way more complicated than it needs to be. Out there isn’t real, it’s just a dream created to get us on their side. In here isn’t real, it’s just a dream, created to get us on your side. I’m some kind a pawn in a really long game of chess and the Doctor is supposed to save the Aetheni, except the other Aetheni, the first ones we met, want  to destroy you?"

A bemused look crossed the Doctor’s face breaking the tension that had been building. 

"I think that about sums it up," he cast a glance at the gathered Aetheni whose silence he took for agreement.

"So how do we know who is telling the truth?"

The Doctor frowned. "Truth is rather dependant on your point of view. Was America discovered or conquered? Did Maradona cheat Argentina into the 1986 football world cup semi finals? Was hitchhiking around Ireland with a fridge the best idea Tony Hawks ever had?"

Confusion crinkled Donna’s face further, "Tony Hawk? The skateboarder?" 

"Comedian, Tony Hawks," he emphasised the last letter with a snake-like hiss, "British guy, from Brighton, on TV a lot… anyway you’re missing the point."

"No, I’m pretty sure you deviated from the point when you started wittering about America, football and fridges," Donna snapped.

The Doctor threw his hands up in frustration.

"The point," he enunciated, "Is that truth depends entirely on how you see the situation. Everyone would like to believe they are in the right all the time, some people can’t accept they are ever wrong."

Donna gave his a hard stare which the Doctor ignored.

"The truth is somewhere in the middle of it all, lost in the confusion."

"Big help that is," she groused.

_ Our truth is that we wish only to escape this place and live freely. We wish no ill on you or on the others, we wish to live in freedom in our natural form.  _

"So you want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" the Doctor through an ironic grin at Donna who shook her head, not amused.

_ Yes. _

"Do you have any ideas how I can help you?" The Doctor asked.

_ The globe is our prison. It is Time Lord science. You, alone, hold the key. _

A low rumble interrupted the Aetheni's thoughts. Donna felt it building in the air, growing louder like an InterCity 125 powering through a tunnel long tunnel. The vibrations thundered closer. It was like a hundred souped up cars with high powered bass stereos, the beat thumping the oxygen out of the air. Their chests shook from the bass that roared in like a tidal wave. The Aetheni swirled in panic, their fears palpable. Their thoughts, every individual one, screamed in terror. With the Aetheni's psychic control shattered in the panic a million voices pleaded for help, filling the Doctor and Donna's heads with screams.

"What the hell is that?" Donna bellowed over screams and vibrations that were filling her head. It was hard to concentrate on anything, sound was everywhere and yet there was nothing to see. All around them everything was dark.

"At a guess I'd say it is the other Aetheni launching an attack," the Doctor shouted back, his hands pressed against his temples trying to shut out the barrage of voices that were drowning his own ability to think.

The assembled Aetheni washed around them like crazed micro comets, golden lights ricocheting in every direction, but trapped with no means of escape. They swirled in decreasing circles until the Doctor and Donna were in the middle of a firefly storm, with the Aetheni passing through their skin in their thousands. The Doctor grabbed Donna's hand and pulled her close to him, face to face, shouting in to her ear hoping she could process his voice over the deafening cacophony of screaming and the pounding vibrations that shook every cell in their bodies.

"You have to clear your mind!" his face so close to Donna's ear her hair brushed his across his nose, "None of this is real, not for us. We have to clear our thoughts... or we will be as trapped as the Aetheni."


	8. Eight

The Doctor watched as Donna beat back the panic and calmed her breath. He held her hand willing her to find a way out. Around him the Aetheni screamed, their torment filling the air, their thoughts no longer collective, no longer harmonious and their telepathy no longer controlled. They spun, ducked, and weaved in every direction but there was no escape. The vibrations came from everywhere at once forming a sonic trap, bombarding everything within it with frequencies so low they reverberated the atoms of creation. 

Aetheni died in their thousands, shaken apart, their tiny golden bodies turning from gold to flame and from flame to fine ash that smothered every surface like a dusting of snow. As Donna slipped out of existence the Doctor pressed his hands against his temples, trying to shut out the millions of dying screams which blended with the millions more that haunted his dreams. 

_ Help us! _

Aetheni howled as they died, begging for a salvation he could not give. The air was on fire, pulsing in waves with vibrations which shook his insides until they turned to liquid and he felt vomit rising from his stomach. Dying Aetheni ripped through his body. Their desperation leached into his thoughts until it wasn't just the Aetheni burning, but the fires of Arcadia, the stench of grilled flesh and the sound of Dalek weapons blending with the pulsing sound and the acrid smell of Aetheni dying. 

He pressed his hands to his head and felt the low sound waves pricking his skin making his hair stand on end. His head pounded with the cacophony of sounds, senses overwhelmed by the screams of the present and images of the past. He tried to breathe, but the air was thick with smoke. His chest heaved with the effort and he fell to his knees curling into a ball. Could he pass out here and wake up back with Donna? He tried to focus his thoughts, but it was too late. He was drowning in the voices of the dead and dying.

On the floor of Gudrun's shop Donna woke feeling the hard boards against her back and a cushion at her head. She took a long steady breath and collected her senses. Dust hung in the air and the room was still. Donna felt her hand still clasping the Doctor's, and she turned her head to his, a relieved grin filling her face.

The smile cracked on her lips. Beside her the Doctor lay with an ashen face, sweat damping his hair and his lips tinged blue. She propelled herself upright and took him by the shoulders, shaking him and calling his name. In her hands he struggled for breath, untidy gasps for air rattled in his chest. Muscles flexed in his locked tight jaw and the veins in his temples pulsed. 

Donna put her mouth to his ear and shouted his name, then pressed her fingers against his sweat dampened temples, willing her mind to connect to his. Telepathy was not a human trait, Donna realised and pulled his other hand from his jacket pocket sending something skittering across the floor. Desperate,  she pressed his clenched fists to her head, but it made no difference. 

"Don't you dare die on me, Spaceman."

In her arms his breath hitched and failed on the exhale. Donna felt her heart sink into her stomach. She slapped him, waiting for him to breath but the next breath did not come. Did mouth to mouth resuscitation work on Time Lords? Donna did not know but she was prepared to try. On her knees she wriggled closer to him finding her way blocked by a pouch that stuck hard into her kneecap. Her fingers gripped the fabric in frustration but as she prepared to through the item across the room Gudrun's words echoed in her head.

"Emergency exit..."

Donna's fingers dug into the Doctor's palm as she forced his hand open and his skin catching under her nails as she pried apart his fingers. With her free hand she opened the pouch and dropped the silver necklace into the scratches on his palm and forced his hand closed with her own.

"Please," she whispered, "Please work."

A sharp inhalation transmuted into an exhalation of pain that ripped raggedly from his throat. His eyes snapped open, pupils tiny specks in dark brown eyes that darted in every direction looking at something only he could see.  He lay in the floor, erratic gasps of breath not satiating the need for oxygen. Beads of sweat glistened on his skin. In a single roll he was on his feet, stuffing the necklace in his palm into a pocket and grabbing Donna by the hand. Adrenalin shunted through his veins and he dragged her to the door. Her legs stuttered in response as the Doctor hauled her from the floor and into a run.

They pounded through the empty street. Leading the way, not speaking and clinging to Donna's hand as the Doctor’s long legs ate up the distance. Donna did her best but his usual fast pace was clearly set for humans and now he ran like a Time Lord, his superior biology urging him forward at a speed faster than Donna could match. She stumbled, skidded and her hand slipped from his, but he didn't stop, just kept running. 

Winded, Donna followed him towards the square as fast as she could. She wheezed his name, but he did not hesitate and did not respond. As his lanky form disappeared around the corner Donna sucked up her energy and forced herself to follow. 

As Donna rounded the corner she saw the Doctor careering to a stop at the edge of the pit in the centre of the square. His shoulders heaved from the exertion and he toppled forward landing with his knees on the last cobbles that held the edge of the hole at bay. With a new burst of adrenalin Donna was at his side in seconds, looping her arms under his armpits and dragging him a few feet backwards until her boot found the edge of a wall. His feet thrashed to find purchase and between his scrabbling and her lifting they fell into a heap with their backs against a clay wall.

"Doctor!" Donna caught his chin and forced him to look at her, "Breath. Just bloody breath."

He blinked, trying to refocus on her face, and gulped air like a drowning man hauled to the surface of a pool. Donna placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back against the wall, refusing to break eye contact. 

"Come on, Spaceman, back to reality."

His clumsy fingers tore at his tie and shirt collar and Donna slackened the former allowing the Doctor to release the top button and draw a deeper breath. 

"It's.... not... reality..." he whispered between inhalations.

Confusion filled Donna's eyes. She opened her mouth, but he carried on speaking.

"Everything here is... imagined."

She shook her head, "No, Doctor you're out of the globe. This is where we landed."

"It's not," he insisted, "I'm not... even sure... we did... land."

"Of course we landed," Donna replied, "How else did we get here?"

He shook off her restraining hand and tried to rise but with the adrenalin and the lack of oxygen his legs had lost their usual strength and he lurched forward.

"Stop," she ordered, her arm wrapped around his labouring chest. "Just, stop. You aren't making sense, and you look like you will pass out any second."

"I… don't… pass out," he replied knowing the lie would be more convincing if he could draw a little more breath. In truth, if the danger weren’t so pressing, he would have allowed his body to black out for a few minutes. Instead he fought back the dark shadow that rushed from the back his skull towards his eyes stopping the edges of his vision dimming any further. His brain seared with the images of burning still flashing through his mind.

Donna clearly didn't believe the bravado and did not comprehend the situation. She was wearing her mother's "don't argue with me" look mixed with a heavy degree of concern. 

"Call it what you want, Doctor, but I know different."

Weariness overwhelmed him and he nodded acceptance closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall. Pulling his knees up towards his chest the Doctor leant into Donna's shoulder as she took a protective position at his side. His breathing slowed to a normal rate but his stiff body did nothing to ease Donna's concerns. She watched him like a hawk, resisting the urge to smooth back the hair that was plastered to his forehead.  

The darkness of the welcoming unconsciousness pressed against the back of his eyes and he forced his concentration back to his breath. A dull pain pushed at the back of his mind and he breathed into it, feeling it dissipate until it was nothing more than an uncomfortable reminder of their recent encounters.

In the silence Donna's stomach growled.

"I can't believe I'm so hungry," Donna laughed with no real humour, "It’s not been that long since breakfast."

"We haven't eaten since we got here," the Doctor told her, "If I'm right we have been caught in an illusion since we got here."

"You said that before," said Donna, realising that he might have been making sense before even though she didn't understand what he meant.

"We didn't land, we stopped. I thought it was a bit odd. The Elder Aetheni were lying to us, the Aetheni in the globe, well they seemed certain we were in the middle of an illusion. I didn't realise it until now but I am starving, not just a bit hungry, I feel as though I haven't eaten in days..."

Donna had to accept that her stomach did seem to be eating itself.

"My mouth is really dry too," Donna admitted.

"I think this whole thing is fabricated. If half of what we've been told is true I will be amazed, but according to legends the Aetheni can take any form. Not just living creatures. I think they are everywhere, the sky, the earth, the buildings, the people. They are making up everything around us."

"Based on what? I mean, where did they get the ideas?"

"From us," a faint scowl lingered on his forehead, "They've been reading our minds from the beginning, trying to get us to believe everything is real. Take the food, I've been to alien worlds from the dawn to the end of time but the good old victoria sandwich cake? That's human. British. Never seen it anywhere that there weren't humans. But the drinks that first night, they reminded me of something too, an old Gallifreyan drink so alcoholic a thimble full would have you comatose. Take Ebun, did you expect her to be anything other than what she was? A good housekeeper, taking no nonsense from the men at her bar?"

"Oh my god..."

The Doctor nodded his face grave, "We have to find a way out of here."

Donna gave him a look that told him he was being too obvious. 

"And how do we do that?" she asked, "Click our heels three times and say 'there's no place like home'?"

"I don't think that will work," fizzing at the edge of his vision distracted him and he largely ignored Donna's facetious remark.

The pit in the centre of the square sat on the edge of his field of vision, a mass of earth, rubble and stones. The far edge where the TARDIS had stood, flickered as though a perception filter was failing. Occasionally gold light shivered and reformed into rock. He watched it and timed the breaks in the image. Beside him Donna was still talking, and he shifted his mind back to her.

"... I mean, how are we ever going to know if we are back in our own reality?"

"Interesting point," he said with the belated realisation that a concrete answer would have been more appealing for his companion in that moment. Pretending not to have spoken he stood up and walked to the edge of the pit, still counting in his head.

"93 seconds."

"You what?" Donna looked at him with disdain but moved to join him at the side of the pit. 

"There's a break in the illusion, every 93 seconds, just over there. Watch."

The Doctor wrapped an arm around Donna and pointed with a long index finger to the spot in question. She followed his stare. Nothing happened.

"I can't..."

"Pay attention," he said and counted, "87, 88, 89, 90."

On the ninety third second the image fizzed gold, shifted and reformed. It took only one or two seconds to complete the process but it was a definite change. Donna inclined her head in admiration.

"So what is it?" she asked.

A grin popped up on his face, "Hope. And possibly a way out. Come on."

He strode around across the cobbles with a renewed spring in his step, eyes never leaving the site of the apparition. Experimentally he picked up a displaced cobble from near the edge and on the ninety third second tossed it into the fizzing light. The stone passed through it and vanished. Pleased, he tossed a second stone into the spot and it bounced off the edge of the pit scattering dirt into the depths. The earth on this side of the pit was less stable and as they stepped towards the gap in the illusion dirt and gravel tumbled away from the edge in discouragingly large quantities.  

The Doctor's enthusiasm grew with every step of his off white trainers. He ran fingers through his hair creating a fair impression of a man who knew what he was doing though his crumpled dusty clothes and the lines around his eyes made him look like a banker crawling home from an all-night party. 

"Got a plan?" Donna asked as a wheelbarrow load of ground disintegrated and tumbled into the chasm.

"Oh, I always have a plan," he chirped.

"You mean, 'No, I don't have a plan, but I'm sure if I pretend I do everything will be fine.'"

The Doctor's rebuttal stuck in his throat as he realised his companion had a point. That was two in the last ten minutes.   

"Pretty much," he agreed "But it is more exciting this way."

Donna snorted, "Can we please get out of here with the least amount of excitement possible?"

"Ah," an apologetic smile flashed in her direction, "I'm afraid I can't promise that."

He picked up a hand full of gravel and on the ninety third second threw it at the fizzing light. The breadth of the gap was visible for a second. It opened vertically into the hole and was about the size of the TARDIS's footprint.

A nasty sinking sensation filled Donna's stomach, and she wasn't hungry anymore. 

"No. Oh, no you can't be serious," Donna stared into the pit and felt the muscles in her legs quiver, "You're really thinking of jumping aren't you?"

"I'll go first, chivalry and all that."

"You will not," Donna snapped back, "We go together or not at all."

"That's the spirit!"

She continued as if he had not spoken, "I'm not having that thing seal up after you jump through and leaving me here."

"Fair enough," he replied, his concentration now diverted into planning their next move. 

Every step closer irritated the loose edge of the hole. The ground fell away each time he tried to approach until there was only piece of earth jutting out into oblivion. The glowing hole was four metres from the edge, it would be a long jump.

"We'll have to run for it," he told her, "And we need pinpoint accuracy. So, please, this one time, Donna Noble, I need you to do exactly as I say."

"I don't know what you mean," she said with a wink and he knew she was taking his instruction seriously. "If we get it wrong?"

He stared into the deep pit before them, "I'm not sure. We might wake up somewhere else if this is another dream. The pit is deep. If it’s not a dream..."

"... broken leg or neck." She finished for him, her tone grim. "Okay, spaceman, you better get this right, or I'll hold you to that promise I made earlier about haunting you for the rest of your unnaturally long life." 

The Doctor sucked air through his lips, "After this, Donna, I would be disappointed if you didn't."

 

He paced out a run up of 15 strides, ticking off the seconds in his mind. Like a games teacher he scuffed a line in the dirt with the back of his shoe and bounced nervous energy from his toes, limbering up. Donna focused on the target zone and for the first time in her life regretted bunking off P.E. lessons at school. Four metres into the pit the TARDIS shaped hole glowed.

"We go on the next one," the Doctor said, taking her hand and giving her fingers a tight squeeze, "Puts a new twist on, 'Once more into the breech'."

"Don't get clever with me, sunshine," Donna tightened her fingers around his, "Listen, if we don't make it..."

"Sssh, ssh. No, Donna, come on. We can do this. It's just like falling off a log."

She rolled her eyes, "You got any more or are you going to leave me hanging?"

His grin didn't reach as far as his eyes but it was a good impression. "Ready?"

Donna shook her head but her lips formed a single, "Yes."

They stood, side by side looking out to the pit. Donna felt his hand counting the seconds with tiny fist pumps towards the floor. Back and forth they rocked, heel to toe, apprehension tensing every muscle.

"Three, two, one, RUN!"

They had plenty of experience in running side by side, Donna realised as their feet dug into the ground, dust flying behind them as they powered towards the ledge. Everything turned into slow motion and for a few steps every colour, every sound was amplified. The cobbles were greys and blues and reds, the dust between them deep brown. Buildings on every side weren't just clay but were grey, yellow and orange. The beams that run up the outsides were black but the pattern of the wood blurred without form, there were no knots and rings, just abstracts bumps and scratches. None of it was real Donna realised, and she threw this new hope into her stride.

The Doctor matched her stride, noting the same oddities in the fabric of this world as Donna. He was right. All they had to do was make this jump and they would be on their way out of here. He felt the earth shiver under his feet and knew the ground was giving way.

"Jump!" he yelled, and they took off into the air, legs still running on the nonexistent surface. 

There was a terrible cracking of the earth and the ground they had stood on gave way. The ninety third second clicked over, and a golden glow illuminated  their feet as they dropped into the crack in the illusion. Forward momentum lost, Donna and the Doctor fell through the golden light and into nothingness.

 


	9. Nine

The fall was short. Hitting the ground feet first, knees crumbling with the shock they rolled into a heap on a shining metal floor that reflected a faint blue glow from the ceiling.  The hole through which they had jumped vanished as t he Doctor bounced to his feet. With an elated grin he heaved Donna upwards despite her grumbling. 

The metal of the floor turned the corner and ran up the walls, becoming a window that joined with the ceiling. Blue lights shone from every direction, their pale glow cast flimsy shadows on the floor and emphasized the dark lines around the Doctor's eyes. 

"We made it!" Donna grinned at him, "I have never jumped that far in my entire life. That was amazing!"

"Yes," he said, the word stretched on his tongue. "Except  I think it's one of those out of the frying pan into the fire  situations ."

Donna followed his gaze around the room searching for the source of the Doctor's dissatisfaction. 

"A room with no doors." 

"Yes, I noticed that too," the Doctor’s gaze swung the circumference of the room.

"Trap?" Donna asked.

"Mm  hmm ," he agreed.

"Prison cell?"

"Without a doubt."

The Doctor inspected the metal and glass walls. A viewing room. Best used for observation, interrogation or execution. He felt in his pocket for his sonic and turned in a circle scanning everything. The sonic  whirred in his hand but the results were inconclusive. 

"Is it real?" Donna asked, walking towards the nearest wall and tapping it with her knuckles. Electricity arched in a small blue spark and she yelped in pain. Beside her in an instant the Doctor examined her fingers for damage.

"It's fine, just a warning shot." 

"Fantastic," she snarled and then pushed passed the Doctor to stare through the viewing window into the darkness behind, "Well come on then, show yourselves."

"Donna, that might not be the best..."  The Doctor tried to interrupt but Donna had lost patience and her temper went with it.  

" You may be busy playing the superior beings, from back at the dawn of bloody time, but you have the manners of a delinquent teenager and  the intelligence of a gnat! What do you want?!"

"I don't think that 's helping," the Doctor said, leading her away from the window.

Behind the transparent  pan e the darkness remained unchanged. Changing the frequency on his sonic screwdriver he scanned window again. This illusion was as vivid as the last and though the sonic could detect the wall’s composition, an analysis was impossible. It was  expected . The Aetheni were ancient, their abilities far greater than  anything the Time Lords had possessed. How ancient Time Lords had trapped the two factions in contemporaneous globes he did not know, but it must have been an impressive feat.  Stowing the sonic back inside his jacket he looked across to Donna who  glared at the window.

"I'm in a goldfish bowl," she groused, sparing a glance at the Doctor before turning her ire back at the nearest window. "What do you think they want?"

"Not sure," he replied, "If they wanted my help they've got a strange way of asking for it."

"And now we're prisoners...." she sighed and shook her head.

"I'll find a way out of this," promised the Doctor, his voice soft and sincere, "I don't think they intended us to end up here. I think the TARDIS is interfering with their illusion. We have to amplify the signal."

Donna looked hopeful, "And then we run?"

He nodded in fervent agreement, "As fast, and as far, as we can."

Donna tapped the breast pocket of his pin striped jacket, "Can the sonic detect the TARDIS?"

"Ah, well no. At least it can't at the moment. I think the TARDIS was bleeding through the image, wearing a hole in it. They have patched it up for now but the TARDIS is strong. She'll find a way."

For once Donna could see no point in arguing. They weren't lost, not in the traditional sense, but there wasn't much hope of an immediate resolution. Despondent, she sighed and sat on the floor crossing her legs and arms in a gesture of defiance.  

 

The Doctor walked the perimeter of the room checking each detail of the wall, searching for signs of fluctuation in the image. He held his hand a few centimetres from the surface feeling the electricity pulse. Tiny specks of light crackled towards his skin.  To Donna’s observations his approach was haphazard, but she said nothing. Though their travels together she had seen the Doctor taken on corrupt humans, giant spiders and walking rock giants, fighting each with honour and humour. In the pale blue lights his taut, ashen skin  stretched across cheek bones and even from ten feet away she could see the muscles in his jaw flex. When he thought Donna wasn't looking his shoulders dropped and the enthusiasm in his inspection of the cell dwindled. 

"Oi, Spaceman," Donna called up to him.

He turned and flashed a 'what do you want?' look that fell short of its target.

"Come here."

The Doctor blinked at Donna and pointed to the wall, "I'm assessing the stability of the illusion using..."

"Just... come here." It wasn't a  request this time.

He rolled his eyes in a valiant  attempt at a counter argument, "What? I'm using my special Time Lord powers to…  to ..."

"Yes?" Donna's eyebrows arched, watching him stumble for a  creative excuse.

He sighed, stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and shrugged.

Donna cocked her head to the side and gave him a long knowing look. She patted the floor beside her and he kicked his feet across the floor resembling a miserable toddler instead of a 900-year-old lord of time. A deep sigh drained from his lungs as he dropped to sit cross legged beside his companion..

"Thanks for trying." Donna reached for his hand and gave a single, compassionate squeeze. 

Deflated, his response was pensive.  "If I could find a break in the illusion, I would be able to tether the sonic to the TARDIS. Then I could vibrate the walls, loosen the bond between the Aetheni and have us out of here."

"What's going on with you?" The questioned popped from Donna’s mouth before she could censor it. His quizzical look made her press  on . "You look as though you are being pulled in twenty directions at once. No offence, Doctor, but you didn't look this rough even when we first met."

"Well thanks very much," he said, affronted. He smoothed his hair and attempted to brush the dust from his jacket, but there was no enthusiasm in his movements and the dust clung to his clothes. "You're not the picture of health yourself."

"I'm tired," she admitted without hesitation. "I haven't felt this tired since Dad died. Didn't sleep for a week then. Mum was being a control freak as usual and losing the plot. Every time I tried to help I  just  made things worse. That's when Grandad moved  in ."

The Doctor's mouth formed a surprised 'oh'.  "I'm so sorry Donna, I never even thought.  You r dad was at your wedding, I assumed he'd  finally  got the gumption and upped and left, what with your Mum being a bit … bolshy."

"It was sudden," Donna told him, ignoring the jibe  about her mother. "Heart attack, 12:05 on a Friday, two weeks after I got back from Egypt. Lucky I was home. He wasn't alone when it happened."

He reached out an arm and wrapped it around her shoulder, "I  really  am sorry."

"Thanks," she replied with a tired smile and briefly rested her head on his shoulder as she appreciated his friendship. "But that's  kin da diverting from the point. What is going on with you?"

The Doctor shifted weary muscles and rubbed his face with both hands trying to erase the exhaustion that etched into his skin.

"How long do you think we've been here?" he asked.

She considered the question, "Three days maybe?"

"Well it feels  about seven to me ," he complained, "I was too busy being clever to notice but I suspect the Aetheni have poked, prodded and probed our minds since the moment we arrived. I doubt you  would notice, human brains aren’t wired the same as a Time Lord’s. I suspected something was wrong, but not until it was too late."

"What did you suspect?" Donna prompted.

"Everything we experienced since we arrived has not been real. Oh it's happened, but  it’s not genuine. Think of it as being in the middle of a movie that’s come to life... it’s real to us but to the Aetheni it's fabricated. Our energy levels are low because we haven't eaten or slept either. Meanwhile the Aetheni have been messing in our  brains . That  kind of constant  activity is draining."

"And worse for people with super advanced Time Lord brains?" she looked into his eyes daring him to make up protective lie.

"There are disadvantages to being a Time Lord," he admitted.

"I knew you weren't  really all that." Her elbow nudged his ribs, and he generated a look of injury that lasted for a moment before slipping back to exhaustion.

"And when we were in the globe," Donna persisted. "Something happened to you. You couldn't get out."

"They got inside my mind," he admitted after a pause so long Donna thought no answer was forthcoming. "If it was real I can’t say, but I watched the Aetheni in the globe burn and die. Every one of them."

There was a distance to his voice Donna recognised. It was the separation he used when speaking of Rose, or Gallifrey, neither of which he made a habit of discussing. She held back, waiting for him to continue.

"It's not the first time I've seen a world burn," he added after another lengthy pause. His eyes dropped to his hands, avoiding Donna’s forgiving scrutiny. 

"Pompeii?" Donna asked, starting with the small stuff.

"Gallifrey."

His gaze wandered to a point on the wall and passed through its silver surface, travelling to a distant place long forgotten by the rest of the universe.

"I watched Gallifrey burn. Not one village, not one town, not even one country. I watched the whole planet burn. Twice. Once on the ground, amongst the weapon fire, standing with the troops, fighting. I was there when the citadel fell, the sounds of breaking glass, screaming. Daleks, their stupid mechanical voices drowning out our commands. People burned, I can still smell it, the singed hair, the bubbling flesh." His voice, just above a whisper, welled with bitterness.  "The Daleks didn't just exterminate, they reigned fire on us and everything disintegrated in the flames. And then there was Arcadia, the last stand of the Time Lords. I watched the fall of my people, and I did the only thing I could. I tried to save everyone by destroying them  all ."

He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins, shivering. His eyes did not waver, locked in to a memory he spent most of his waking hours trying to forget. 

"And you survived," Donna's voice was  almost as quiet as his own.

" I ran," he replied.  " I ran and ran as my world tore itself apart.  I watched the Daleks trying to flee, their ships exploding as the time wave expanded, little pockets of burning fire shooting across the stars. They burned  like a nest of bees, flaming in the darkness, swarming and burning and dying."

He leant forward, head resting on his knees,  grateful for Donna's warm embrace. She took him into her side with such gentleness he feared unshed tears  would disgrace his cheeks. He swallowed several times, dragging his exhausted emotions back into check. For a while they sat in silence, Donna's arm wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder. 

"You okay?" Donna asked him when his breathing returned to normal. She gave him another squeeze before letting her arm slide from his shoulders.

"Yeah," he sat back and gave her a watery smile, "Thank you."

Donna blushed and shrugged off his sincerity, "It's what mates are for, numbskull."

The Doctor shook himself as he stood up, flexing his muscles and rotating his neck to release the crick that had developed at the top of his spine. He was back into action, pacing around the room again. 

"Oh, but Donna, Donna you're brilliant!...."

"I  didn't do anything !"

The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet, hands knotted into his hair as his brain spurted back into action.

"There's no place  like home, that's what you said. And you're right. It's the strongest thought you can have, the biggest draw.  It’s more powerful than  anything else in the universe, the pull to the thing, the place closest to your heart." 

He spun on the spot, left then right, tugging the thoughts from his head. 

"If I can empty my mind for long enough, I can get back to the TARDIS and use oscillated sound to magnify the frequency of the sonic screwdriver. It will shatter the illusion."

Donna eyed him with suspicion. In principle his plan was sensible, in practice she wasn't sure it  would work. For a start he hadn't got a great track record with blocking out the Aetheni from his brain. Getting to her feet and stretching her tired body Donna decided to stick with the direct approach.

"But how are you going to do that? Last time you weren't able to break free, I had to use that necklace to bring you back."

He looked crestfallen for a moment but whirled into action again, pacing up and  down the room repeating "think" to himself in hushed urgent tones.

"Can I do it?" Donna asked, "You know, whatever you need doing in the TARDIS, is it something you can tell me to do? I mean, if it’s not too technical."

The Doctor paused mid stride, left foot hanging in mid step the sole reflecting on the metal floor.

"I don’t think so, Donna," he said. "The pull of home is the  c rucial part. It’s the only thing strong enough to connect you to the TARDIS."

Donna gave him a withering stare, "Yeah, I got that bit."

He blinked at her as if processing this piece of information was too much for his alien brain. Wobbling on his right leg he spun back in her direction considering her proposal. 

"The TARDIS is my home too you know," Donna told him, " Seriously ,  all my stuff is in there. You ought to know, you helped carry it  in ."

"It’s not about stuff," he replied, his tone less condescending than his words. "It’s... it’s a physical connection. Where your roots are."

"Don’t take this the wrong way, Time Boy, but I have never felt more at home in my adult life than in the TARDIS with you."

His pale skin blanched further, " But …"

"As house-mates!" Donna blew up in exasperation, "You know, mates that live together? Sometimes have parties, drink  to o much and argue  about who hasn’t done the washing  up ?" 

The Doctor’s mouth dropped open, and he snapped it shut with a pop from his lips. At any other time Donna’s enjoyment of his stunned expression would have been immense. 

"You have to be very sure," the Doctor found his voice again, "If this goes wrong we could end up separated."

"I’m sure."

"You must break through the illusion. Cut out  anything they throw at you. Your mind will have to be blank. No thoughts, nothing." 

"I can block out anything," she continued with a dry laugh, "I had plenty of practice living with my mother. I never thought of that as an advantage before."

"It's risky," he said, concern creasing the edges of his eyes. "If you can't break free, they'll change their tactics. And you'd have to be sure you were out of the illusion before you tried to use the TARDIS. If you were in a fake reality that mirrored the TARDIS we could teach them how to use her as a weapon."

"How will I know the difference between illusion and truth?"

The Doctor was moving again as he tried to think, "I'm not sure you  would .  I can sense it, now I know what I'm looking  for . It’s a presence at the back of my mind. You don’t have that ability."

Her face twisted with concern, "We'll that sounds  like a problem."

"And then there are the adjustments you need to make on the console to start the oscillation. Specific frequencies, and well I've never had it translated into English. It’s the one bit of my people I have kept, the displays are  Gallifreyan and the TARDIS doesn't translate them, I changed the settings...."

He stopped pacing and looked at his feet, despondent. This wasn't a good plan, not at  all . Success depended on his ability to break free, and Donna was right, his track record was appalling.

" It 's a shame I can't read your mind," Donna sighed.  Initial enthusiasm lost Donna stared at the walls herself, looking for any sign of the TARDIS breaking through and reaching them.

Suddenly  the Doctor was running across the room. He grabbed her by the upper arms his face beaming with excitement.

"Donna Noble, I don't know what I  would do without you.  You are amazing! Brilliant.  You can’t read my mind, but part of me can travel with you!"

A look of pure horror crossed Donna's face, an expression lost on the Doctor in his renewed enthusiasm. 

"I can separate a piece of my consciousness and transfer it to your mind. It will be tricky, okay a tad complicated, but then you can meditate your way out.  I'll be able to tell if you're in reality or another illusion and can  operate the TARDIS bringing you back to pick up the rest of me. You'll be a Trojan horse!"

The Doctor did not anticipate the slap that caught him hard on his shoulder. It was not one of Donna's playful taps but a  fully  fledged open palmed smack that brought him back to reality with a heavy thump.

"One, I am NOT a T rojan horse! Two, I am not being possessed by your crazy alien brain. I've seen The Exorcist."

His eyes opened wide, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline as he realised his errors, "Oh, no, no it's not like that! I won't be in control of you, it'll just be a tiny piece of my consciousness, just enough to help you figure out how to control the TARDIS. Think of it less as possession and more like a hitch-hiker."

"I've seen InnerSpace too," Donna retorted, "And Inside Out that day we went home for a visit and found it was 2015 not 2007. I'm not having you poking around in my head with your Martian thoughts. They'll be weird and… and alien."

"Not as alien as the Aetheni," he replied, his tone softening. "I promise I won't poke around in your mind, I won't make you do  anything weird or crazy.  You won't even know I'm there… well you will when I'm telling you what to do I suppose, but apart from that...."

Donna drew a deep breath and let her fear relax aware of the tightness that was building in her chest. What was it that scared her? She had volunteered for the task .   Why was the thought of carrying a slimline version of the Doctor's mind so terrifying? She took another breath and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Are you sure this will work?"

The Doctor held her stare. "I've never separated a part of my consciousness. It will  feel strange, for both of us. Re-integration afterwards will be a piece of cake. But yes, I am sure I can do it."

"And you think  this is the only way out of here?" she asked.

"There may be other ways, but I don't know what they are at the moment." 

Donna nodded, considering the options.

"Okay," she said, clearing her throat and finding a more assertive voice. "Let's do this."

* * * * * * * * *

 

"You're sure?" the Doctor asked for the third time as he took his seat on the floor.

Donna sat opposite him the mirror image of his cross legged position, her back straight, hands folded  nervously  in her lap. She wore a mask of confidence but knew it was near transparent. 

"Can we get on with it, before I change my mind?"

He nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, calming his hearts which were pumping hard. 

"I’ll connect with your mind first," his tone was reassuring and steady. "It won't be  like last time, that was an emergency. This will be more subtle, remember how it was with the  Ood ? Then I will syphon off a piece of me and..."

Donna touched his hand halting his words, "I know you're trying to make this as family friendly as possible but honestly , can you  just  do it? I don't need to know the details."

He patted her hand and nodded, "Okay. Copy my moves. Place your hands on my temples..."

His cool hands reached across and touched her face, index and middle fingers on her temples, third and fourth fingers just below her ear, thumbs resting in the middle of her cheeks at either side of her nose. She mirrored his action feeling his soft, cool skin under her fingers. 

"That's it. Now, close your eyes."  

He closed his  eyes, and a frown formed over the bridge of his nose as he concentrated. Donna followed his instruction and waited.

"Open your mind," he coaxed. "That's it. Now close those doors in the long corridor. I don't want or need to see in there. That's good.  Clear your mind. We can do this together. "

Donna felt the edges of his mind slip into hers, cautious, tentative. The touch of his mind was like a new lovers caress, tender and sensitive.  Instinctively she reached into his mind, saw the doors to his past close around her. His dis-ease bridged between them and she felt his discomfort as if it were her own. The corridor in his mind as dark and long. Nearby doors shut tight, only a small fraction of light slipped under each one, lighting the floor with a soft amber glow. Further along the corridor a blasted door hung open, frame shattered,  the lock lay on the floor in pieces. Dim red light flickered behind it and Donna turned her back so she would not see what lay within. She felt his relief at her discretion. Around her the walls of his mind bubbled in the style of a bad 1990's computer screen saver, bulging and wavering as though they might crumble at any moment.

"What's that?" she asked watching a bulge ripple the fabric of the floor.

"Damage to the walls of my mind," he replied, his voice tight and strained, "The Aetheni have done more damage than I thought."

"Can you still do this?"

"Maybe," he said as another bubble appeared in the first door making it gape at the hinges and allowing an undefined, pained scream to slip out. "I need to block them out."

Warmth flowed from Donna's mind into his and he gasped, pulling back in  surprise . Her thoughts were steady,  clear . He had not expected her natural talent. Donna Noble, the woman who could miss spaceships over London, had more empathy and vision than  almost anyone with whom he had shared his mind.

He opened his eyes and saw she was looking at him, her green eyes wide and glistening.

"It's okay," Donna reassured him, "We can still do this."

Beneath her fingers she felt him  nod .

"Close your eyes," she urged, "And breathe with me."

They closed their eyes together and inside their joined mind a peace descended. They breathed in unison, steady and free, with Donna's mind leading his thoughts into a pocket of calm. The bubbles in the Doctor's thoughts faded until his mind was still. For a few breathes they held the silence, taking a comfort in the shared stillness. Then Donna drew back and let the Doctor begin the  process of separating a piece of his mind. 

A small blue TARDIS coloured box descended, floating in the space between them where their minds were one. It opened at his instruction, the space inside staring back at them. There was a change in the air, a tension that rocked their thoughts. Donna steadied the connection while the Doctor struggled with his task. With the crude skill of a barber-shop dentist he tugged at a small chunk of his own mind, the force making the bond stretch to its limits.

" Steadily ," Donna's voice broke through, drawing his focus.

He tried again and a small grey shadow drew out from the wall, struggling and fighting against the extraction. The blue box snapped shut around the piece of his consciousness and then travelled forwards until it was within Donna's mind.

Donna felt her brain tingle as the box crossed the threshold of her thoughts. He laid the box  down with gentleness and withdrew, the connection between them melting to nothing. 

The Doctor's hands curled and slipped from Donna's face. Removing her fingers from his temples Donna opened her eyes to see his face contorted in pain. She reached across and brushed a single tear from his cheek feeling him startle at her touch.

In a second the pained look vanished, replaced by concern in his stare as he looked at her.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Donna nodded, "I feel a bit queasy, but nothing a decent cup of tea wouldn't fix. You all-right?"

"Always," he responded without hesitation, then produced a twisted smile. "It was harder than I expected."

She patted his hand, "But we did it."

"Are you ready for stage two?" 

" Operation Kansas?" she wriggled in her cross legged position making herself more comfortable. "Yeah, I'm ready. You keep out of trouble while I'm gone."

The Doctor climbed to his knees and gave Donna an impromptu hug.

"Okay time-boy," she laughed at him, "T echnically  you're hugging yourself when you do that and that’s plain weird."

"Just bring that bit of brain back safely ," he told her. "That might hold something else important,  like the best way to fry chips, or the password to my email account."

Donna stared at him, "You have email?"

"Doesn't everyone?" he grinned. 

"Well be quiet then," Donna told him, "It's hard enough trying to meditate with  a  piece of you floating around my skull. I don't need you yacking at me as well ."

"Oh," he said, taken aback by Donna's calm approach. "I'll just sit here and... you know... be quiet."

"That'd be nice," she gave him a warm smile.

"Good luck," he said and added a cautionary, "Be careful."

The Doctor watched Donna close her eyes and meditated herself out of existence. 


	10. Ten

Icy air against her skin brought Donna out of her trancelike state. Surrounded by a cloud of thick white fog the dampness in the air settled over her, wetting skin and making her hair frizz. There was no breeze but the ground under her backside was freezing, hard and uncomfortable. Donna stood and turned in the white out trying to get her bearings. She could see no further than the end of her outstretched arm, and the only conclusion she drew with accuracy made her stomach knot. Operation Kansas was not going to plan.

The air smelt strange and dirty. Fog filled air tasted of car exhaust and coal fires. Only twenty-first century Earth boasted that pollution. Wrapping her arms around her chest Donna shivered and waited for a sign, something to tell her if the world she arrived in was an illusion or reality. The part of the Doctor inside her mind said nothing 

Looking to her feet Donna realised she was standing on pavement. No, not pavement. A patio, with grey slate slabs, 60cm square. They were the expensive variety. The kind her mum had insisted on buying when they landscaped the garden in the summer before her doomed wedding. 

"Funny, the little details you remember," Donna muttered through chattering teeth. 

She stepped forward counting the squares until the red brick wall of a house loomed out of the fog. Her eyes followed the wall towards the sky. Red brick turned to white cladding at the first floor and a window peering out into the gloom was accented by cream floral curtains. Donna shivered, fear squeezed her chest and her stomach flipped. Was she back? In England? From a distant place in space and time? Had the plan failed? Was her draw to the TARDIS not strong enough? She had been thinking of home, concentrating her thoughts on the safety it provided. Had her own mind betrayed her?

Donna reached out and ran her fingers across the brick feeling the rough texture solid at her touch. It felt real. Inside her head the Doctor remained silent. Catastrophic scenarios ran through her mind. What if the Doctor’s mind was too badly damaged and he couldn’t reach her? Separated as the Doctor had feared, how would she find her way back to him? Was she back home in Chiswick, safe and sound, while he sat, trapped at the ends of the universe, alone? Pressing her eyes shut Donna pushed away the intrusive thoughts and sucked in a breath of freezing air. She had to keep going. Now was not the moment for a crisis of confidence.

The patio door would be on her left. They opened into the kitchen / diner, dark curtains hanging either side of the door frame. She moved in short, rigid, hesitant steps; afraid in equal measure of being home, or being trapped. The double panelled glass door was exactly where she expected it to be, the lock flipped up in the open position. She hesitated with her hand on the sliding door handle.

"Please, Doctor?" she whispered. "Tell me this isn't real."

She closed her eyes and listened for his voice. His thoughts. Some signal to tell her she should sit back on the floor and try again. The cold pressed through her clothes as the fog clung to her thin sweater. Everything she wore becoming a freezing blanket of damp. She could go in, get warm, see if it felt real. 

The door in front of her opened and her hand, still grasping the handle, trundled to the right stretching her arm wide.

"Are you coming in, love?" 

Donna froze. Blood drain from her face and her legs trembled so that the only thing keeping her upright was the bone white hand that still clutch the door handle. Inside her chest her heart stuttered and broke.

"Donna?" Her father's voice was rich and warm, just as she remembered. "What are you doing out there? It’s only the February. You can't go swanning around in the garden in a summer sweater. Look at you, you're drenched. Come inside, sweetheart."

Geoff Noble’s hand landed on his daughter’s forearm and gave a gentle, encouraging tug. With clouded, tear-filled eyes she stepped over the threshold, warm air of the central heating brushing across her face in a welcome relief. 

"Dad..." 

He beamed at her, eyes glowing behind his round glasses, pudgy cheeks flushed, his almost white hair combed back. 

"What is it, Donna, love?"

"I love you," she blurted, grabbing him in the tightest hug she had ever given. In her arms he was real, alive. His pressed shirt crinkled in the embrace and she felt the rough edges of his shaved cheek against her smooth skin. He smelt of aftershave, Old Spice, and Imperial Leather soap. Indigestion tablets hung on his breath mixed with mint toothpaste. 

Confused, but accommodating, Geoff hugged her and ignored the way her wet clothes transferred their dampness to his dry ones. 

"What's the matter, love?" he asked into her shoulder as she failed to release him.

"Nothing," her voice cracked, and she sniffed in his ear. "I just... I just need you to know how much I love you."

Geoff patted her back and rocked her as though she were a child again. 

"You've not been the same since Christmas," he said, smoothing her hair.  "And you never told us what happened to Lance..."

Donna shook her head, releasing her father from her arms but hanging on to his hands squeezing his fingers and rubbing her thumbs across the back of his wrinkling skin. 

"Nah," she sniffed and blinked away tears. "Ancient history. Doesn't matter now. I'm just being silly. Shall I make us a cup of tea?"

Donna broke away and rushed to the kettle, grabbing mugs from the cupboard and tea bags from the caddy on the counter. Opening the fridge she glimpsed the calendar that hung there, the days crossed off by her Mother's neat hand. February 23rd 2007. Her mother was at one of her Women's Institute gatherings, swilling tea and complaining about the quality of the cakes at last week's sale. February 23rd. Her heart thudded so loud in her ears she did not hear the electric kettle click off. Her eyes drifted to the clock above the door. 

11:56.

Half blind from the tears Donna groped for the telephone, picking it up and dialling without thought.

"Ambulance," she said, her voice dry and cracking.

The operator switched the call and a man's voice answered.

"Donna, it's not real."

"No," she whispered, desperate and pleading, "You can't do this now. You should have told me when I was outside. Before I walked through that door."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor's voice was faint. "I tried, but couldn't reach you."

Tears rolled over her cheeks, her gaze boring into the back of her father’s head as he withdrew two coasters from the sideboard draw, rubbing his chest in agitation. 

"I can save him," she croaked into the receiver. "I know I can."

"You can't," sorrow filled his words. "This isn’t real. You have to walk out of here, clear your thoughts. This is an illusion, just like the town, the globe and the cell."

Donna sniffed, her fingers clutching the phone hand piece until her knuckles turned white. At the kitchen table she heard her father take a sharp inhale and complain about his heartburn.

"I can't..." she slid to the floor, back against the white doors of the kitchen cupboard.

The Doctor’s presence strengthened in her mind.

"That’s not your Dad," his voice was firm but kind. "Everything you can see here is the Aetheni, those tiny specks of energy making up an image to keep you trapped here."

She scoured tears from her face with a damp sleeve and smothered a heart torn sob, palm gagging her lips. The Doctor was right, he always was. She had known it was an illusion the moment she saw her father’s face, but she ached to see him one last time. 

"How’s that cuppa coming love?" Geoff called from the diner. "I’m dying for a brew here."

With an agonised breath Donna pulled herself upright and replaced the phone in its cradle. Screwing shut her eyes she steeled herself for action. In the hall she heard the clock chime midday and from outside she caught the crunch of the postman’s feet on the gravel front drive. It was all exactly as she remembered it. She had five minutes. She poured the hot water into two cups and sloshed the milk in, counting every second as it passed. The Doctor was with her. She could sense his presence like a strengthening hand on her shoulder, but his words were stilled. 

The kitchen clock clicked on another minute. Donna took an unsteady breath and walked back to the table, placing a cup of tea in front of her Dad and taking the seat opposite him. He smiled at her, his thick glasses wobbling as his cheeks lifted.

"There’s never enough time," Donna began, her voice cracking as she spoke. "Even with a time machine there’s never enough time. I’ve understand that now. I’ve seen so many things. Wonderful things you’d never believe, never understand. I wish I could tell you everything; but, in the end, it wouldn’t matter. Because I know you’re not my Dad. Because this home is just another illusion. It’s heartless, it’s inhumane, and I don’t know what kind of kicks you are getting out of this, but I will say this. I loved my dad. He was the best dad in the world. He didn’t have a lot of money, he didn’t buy me all the best things and he didn’t need to. Whenever I needed him, he was there, with a smile or a hug. A shoulder to lean on. Someone who made me laugh when the rest of the world made me cry."

Donna reached across the table and took her father’s hands in her own. Feeling the roughness of his skin, the warmth of his touch she squeezed his fingers tight and stood up. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders she kissed the top of his head.

"And I was there when he died. I held his hand. I told him it was all-right as I watched the light fade in his face and the final tears fill his eyes. If I thought just for one tiny moment you were him, I’d do that a thousand times over, because he was a good man and I would never let him die alone."

She wiped her eyes and clenched her fists as she stepped away. 

"But you aren’t him. You aren’t my dad. And I am not playing your games."

Donna turned on her heel and walked out of the front door as the clock ticked over to 12:05.

Alone in his cell the Doctor sat on the floor tapping the sonic on to a rhythm he alone could hear. Every tap was a second, and he had reached ten thousand, it might have been eleven thousand, he had lost track early on when the cell walls had shrunk to a box 5ft square. Not big enough for him to lie down, which he thought was particularly inconsiderate given his current levels of exhaustion. The glass windows had turned into projection screens. Images of his life played in vivid detail and he ignored the display, keeping is eyes low. The sounds, voices of his past, filled his ears as he counted. His best attempts to shut himself off from the noise only marginally successful. 

Above him an ancient tale mocked his inaction. Cold mechanical voices screamed the same refrain over voices he had never thought to hear again. Chesterton, that was his name, and the dark haired Barbara. His own granddaughter sick with radiation poisoning, locked in a cell. At least that cell was bigger, he mused to himself as the sound of Barbara’s cries rang through the air. He closed his eyes and focused on the ticking of the sonic in his hand. 

The walls fizzled and sparked but he resisted the temptation to open his eyes. Donna had it right, this was a game. One he tired of playing. His head throbbed from the carnage left by Aetheni bombardment. They were still in his mind, trawling through his past, piece by piece disintegrating his ability to resist. Battered doors and shattered locks allowed memories to roam without censor. His lack of engagement with the projected images paid off and at last the dreadful cacophony ceased. The Doctor opened his eyes in time to see the walls pressing in once more and he leapt to his feet, legs dead from sitting still for so long. He wobbled, keeping his hands away from the electrified cell walls.

"I’m not claustrophobic," the Doctor called out in frustration. "You should know, you’ve been in my head long enough." 

The walls continued to close in leaving standing room only. Even turning around without brushing a wall was impossible.

"Why don’t you come on out and talk?" he demanded. "I can talk to hours. On any subject. You might even learn something."

To his relief the cell’s walls stopped moving. He was looking directly at one the window now, staring at his own reflection which scowled back at him with haggard lines. The Doctor made a pretence of smartening himself up, pulling his tie straight and rubbing his chin as if deciding if he needed a shave. A face blossomed into life on the other side of the glass. He blinked away the tiredness that hazed his view and boxed away the anger that swelled as Hadiya’s form glowered through the pane.

His reflection adopted a sycophantic smile and nodded its head. The woman did not return the gesture.

"Oh, hello again," the Doctor chirped. "I’d shake your hand but I’m a bit contained at the moment."

Hadiya continued to glare, a fury burning in her eyes, jaw set tight and teeth clenched.

"You have failed us," she said, her tone acerbic. "We asked for your help and you betrayed us."

"Now hang on a minute," the Doctor rose to her goading. His fingers gripped the lining of his trouser pockets to keep his arms from flying up into the air. "You didn’t give me ANY help at all in trying to figure this out. In fact you have pretty much lied to us from the second we arrived."

"You entered the globe and did not destroy them," Hadiya countered. "Parled! Allowed them to control your mind. Now they are within you. You brought them into our world. Even now they are consuming your mind. Soon they will be free to roam amongst us and we will be lost."

The Doctor frowned, "I entered the globe, and you killed them. I watched them burn!"

Hadiya scoffed, "You believed their illusion. We did no such thing."

"And now you’ve locked me in a cell." He leaned toward the glass and felt the electricity arc towards at his nose. "It’s not the classic route of repayment for services rendered."

Her scowl deepened, "It is not you we contain. They are already leeching from your head. Testing the barriers. Trying to break through. They use your thoughts and memories for energy."

Behind him another remembrance of his past played out. Peri’s called to him, begging for help. He fought the desire to turn to her.

"They’re getting close, aren’t they?" Hadiya gloated, "How much more of that can you withstand, Doctor? A few more hours, a day the outside? Soon you will lose control of your mind and we will be destroyed."

"If you’d only told me…" 

Hadiya’s voice was thick and dark, "It was too late. When did they first enter your mind Doctor? Can you remember that?"

He shook his head, screaming memories clouding his judgement.

"It was before we even met," she told him, "In the moment that your ship landed they sensed you. Before you opened the door to our world you were already taken."

"No," he insisted, "No that’s not true, nothing can get through the TARDIS."

She laughed, a low, unpleasant sound. "Get through the TARDIS? Doctor, they didn’t need to get through it, they were in it. We have been prisoners in the time stream for millenia, trapped in the contemporaneous sphere’s of old Gallifrey.  We have been waiting for a Time Lord for thousands of years. Tapping at the edge of the untempered schism, travelling the eddies of time. Our paths have crossed, but here we collided. Three existences converged in one."

"That’s not possible…" he screwed shut his eyes. If he could only think. Have a single moment of clarity.

"They attached themselves to your mind and turned you into a beacon for the rest."

His throat was parched as he croaked, "And Donna?"

"The human was your downfall. She was infected. But her mind is not sufficiently developed, it cannot act as host."

The Doctor hung his head and closed his eyes, "Oh Donna, I am so so sorry."

Hadiya moved closer to the glass, her golden eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Doctor, what have you done?"

"Donna has gone to use the TARDIS to dampen the illusions. I could use the TARDIS to stop this, but Donna doesn’t know how, so she carried a piece of my consciousness with her," he met Hadiya’s gaze. "That makes her the perfect conduit."

A fist slammed against the glass, rocking the cell. "You are a fool!" she screamed at him. 

"I can fix this," he promised, his voice urgent. "Let me out, you must have other ways of controlling them. Let me out of here and I can save everyone."

"From what I saw you couldn't even save yourself," Hadiya growled.

The Doctor groaned with frustration. "You've made this containment chamber for them. To stop them leaking out of me and into your world. Let me help. I can buy you time to find another solution."

"The solution is their demise," she told him coldly. "Do you think Time Lords created these prisons without due cause? Gallifrey’s lack of interest in the affairs of other species is not new.  What must we have done to invoke their wrath? The binding was a last resort, to save the universe from destruction. The other’s will rip space and time apart in vengeance."

"There’s no-one left to punish," the Doctor whispered. 

Hadiya stared at him, lips curved in a snarl. "You still exist, Time Lord. It is disappointing that I will not be present to witness your destruction."

Golden light strobed across Hadiya’s body and she writhed in pain.

"No, no, no!" the Doctor yelled as he watched Hadiya's face dissolve. "Let me out, let me help you!"

It was too late. Hadiya's body rippled in a swirling mass of gold and disintegrated. The Aetheni that composed her form trickled across the floor in dust. His anger swelled and he raised a fist, hitting the window hard. It rattled the walls of the cell and electricity spurted forward leaping for his arm and stretching over his body. He fell backwards against another wall. Another blast of energy hit him from behind. 

He cried out as the pain leapt across muscles making each one twist in an agonising constriction. Electricity jumped between his neurones. His hands clenched into fists. Legs contracting, he fell to the ground the arc of electricity pulsating around him. In his pocket one hand tightened around the sonic screwdriver. A terrible explosion boomed above. The walls of the cell shook, the blue lights flickered and there was nothing. 


	11. Eleven

In the place that resembled Chiswick, but wasn't, Donna walked along the pavement her cheeks damp with tears. Though none of it was real, and Donna knew it, keeping calm and carrying on was more difficult than she had ever imagined. As she walked away from her parent's home she knew the man that looked like her father was dying on the kitchen floor with no-one to hold his hand. Every time she tried to push the thought to the back of her mind it surged back, a wave on a beach, washing the sand away from beneath her.

"Donna, I'm sorry, but you need to focus." The Doctor's voice, urgent and concerned, echoed in her ear.

"Shut it, Spaceman," she replied. "I'll do this my way."

The portion of the Doctor that was in her mind withdrew and Donna was alone in her thoughts. She stumbled along another street until she reached a second house, red brick from gravel drive to the slate roof. At the white UPVC door she lifted her hand, rapping twice on the stained glass pane. From inside came shuffling sounds, moccasins on carpet.  The Yale lock twisted, the door opened. Wilfred Mott stood before her, wrapped up in a thick knitted sweater, mittens on his hands.

"Donna!" he cried out, a delighted smile creasing wrinkled cheeks. "What are you doing here love? I just got back from the stall..."

The man who was not her grandfather, but was a perfect replica to the last freckle on his face, saw the tears in her eyes. Reaching out he pulled her into a hug and she buried her face in his woolly shoulder, needing to believe, if only for a moment, he was real.

"Oh, Donna love, what's happened?"

Donna struggled against a sob, and he hurried her indoors. Warm air filled the house. A fire, freshly stoked, burned in the living room and in the kitchen the stove top kettle whistled.

Falling onto the old leather sofa, Donna dried her eyes on her sleeve. Inside her head she could feel the Doctor’s frustration but ignored it. If there was any chance she could find her way back to the TARDIS Donna knew it could only come when she had control of her emotions. 

Wilf brewed tea, placed two mugs on the hearth and took the seat next to his granddaughter. "Do you want to tell me about it, sweetheart?"

"Don't call me that," Donna's eyes flashed with anger. "This flaming game of yours… it's sick. You can make yourselves look like people I love as much as you like, but I will never believe you."

The Wilf duplicate adopted a look of injury. Donna shrugged it off. 

"Don’t pretend," she continued in a dull monotone. "It’s insulting."

"Alright then," Wilf’s hand dropped to his side. "I’m sorry, Donna."

A withering stare bore into the old man’s blue eyes. Donna’s jaw was set, teeth clenched. 

"If you were truly sorry you would stop this," Donna sniped back. "The Aethini wouldn’t know contrite if it turned around and bit you in the combined backside. Is this why the Time Lords locked you in those spheres? Did you mess with their heads too?"

Wilf’s eyes flashed yellow. When he spoke the voice had changed, lowering into a tone she did not recognise. 

"There was a war between our people," said the image of Wilfred Mott. "A disagreement over the terms of our existence grew… explosive. Some wished to adopt corporeal form, join together to create flesh bodies, other’s wished to remain individual, operating as a cloud and in consciousness. The division caused conflict, and ultimately civil war."

"The other lot said there wasn’t a war," Donna argued, hearing the Doctor say the same words in her head.

"Their terminology differed," his reply was slow. "They saw it as genetic cleansing."

Nausea rose in Donna’s stomach and she felt the Doctor bristle. 

"We could have helped," Donna stared at him. "If you’d just told us what was happening."

The man who was not Wilfred Mott shook his head, sadness filled his amber eyes. "We could not trust a Time Lord. We appealed for their help and were betrayed. Captured and held in the spheres for thousands of years.

"So you used us instead."

"It was unfortunate. Not all of us believed it was right, but the Elders… we were in their hands. It seems they were wrong in their assessment of the Doctor." The old man stood with stiff, uncomfortable movements, flexing his legs just as her grandfather would after sitting for too long. 

"We could still try…"

His head shook and a faint shimmer of amber light rippled across his hand. "Too late for that."

"What do you mean?" The nausea made Donna light headed, and though the man before her was not her grandfather she could not bear to see him devoured as Ebun had been. "There’s still time."

"You have been used as a trojan horse," he said with a wry smile. "There is no going back now."

"But…"

The old man smiled at her with her grandfather’s lips and his sad, sad eyes. "I don’t want you to see this. So you stay in here, by the fire. I’ll pop over the road to Mrs Maitkin’s and buy you a little time."

He turned to leave, hesitated, and stepped back, planting a kiss on her forehead which Donna accepted in a stunned silence.

"I know what you need to do, Donna, sweetheart, and you don’t need any distractions. Save yourself, and that wonderful Doctor. The universe needs you both. We are old and tired, and our time has passed."

Before Donna could find her voice her would-be grandfather hurried into the hall. As he crossed the road, the front door swung shut, Yale lock clicking into place behind him. Pushing away the knowledge that across the street the man who looked like her gramps was disintegrating into a cloud of amber dust Donna took a shuddering breath and stared at the fire.

The Doctor’s voice whispered in her mind, "These illusions are different from before. They are linked to your memories. Your perception of the people you love has changed the way they interact. It’s like he was bound to respond to you like Wilf, he had to tell you the truth. He felt the need to protect you."

"If I wanted an explanatory lecture, I'd have asked." She growled at him, using anger to cover a surge of homesick sadness. "This needs to end. I can’t… I don’t think I can take much more."

"Then you need to try again," he replied. "Time is running out."

The nagging fear in her stomach agreed with the Doctor and though she said nothing, she knew he could feel it as well. With a sigh Donna stripped off her wet cardigan and, taking a blanket from the pile beside the sofa, wrapped  herself in the fleece fabric. 

Flames licked the black coals in the grate. Flashes of blue fire leapt from coal brickettes to warm the cheaper slack above. As the shivering stopped, Donna took a long, shaky breath and slid from the sofa to sit cross legged on the rug. She reached her hands to the heat and rubbed them together. Ice fingers ran through her skin and into her bones. Numb now, in every respect, she allowed the cloud of nothingness slip over her brain. She needed not to think, not to feel. 

The fire crackled. Donna closed her eyes, focused on the sounds, and thought of nothing but the cool blue light of the TARDIS console hoping for a beacon to see her home.

 

  
The Doctor groaned as he regained consciousness. Every cell in his body ached. He lay in a curled ball of pinstripes and smoke. Feet pressed against one wall, head against another, knees and back against two more. Experimentally he wriggled his fingers, the sonic screwdriver dropped from his rigid grasp, clattering on the floor. The sound hurt.

A burnt electrical smell hung in the air. Sinking from the high ceiling, a cloud of thick smoke loitered above the floor. He inhaled and choked on the fumes, dragging himself upright using the walls as a brace. The world swam and his eyes streamed. 

Wiping the tears from his face he studied the cell with a detached sense of self-satisfaction. He had forced the energy into a feedback loop,  rendering the walls inert and safe to touch. It was unfortunate he had only had the idea as he was being electrocuted, but he had survived, almost unscathed. He examined his trainers, the soles had developed holes. 

Despite the lack of energy in the walls had survived intact. The transparent panels were still in place, a hairline fracture in the corner of one seemed to be his only hope of breaking free. He retrieved the sonic screwdriver from the floor and clicked it twice before pointing it at the crack.

"If I can manipulate the structure of walls at the point of damage, I might be able to shatter the cohesion between the cells and open a doorway."

He blinked, realising he was talking to himself, and shrugged. The sonic screwdriver whirled but neither the rotation of settings nor the tapping it against his hand made any difference to the dimensions of the only flaw in the cell. With no other tools at his disposal the Doctor summoned up the courage and energy to punch the fracture line with his fist. With the limited swinging range for his arm it was hard to achieve any real power. He cried out in pain as the impact of his attack shot through his knuckles and up his arm, making no dent on the wall. Violence was not the answer. 

He shook out his injured hand and nursed it against his lips for a few minutes before reaching into his pockets to see what other items he may have to aid his escape. Failing that, he would settle for something to keep boredom at bay. His trouser pockets produced a range of unhelpful items. Paperclips, the wing nut from a wind up giraffe he had been trying to fix for a week, wrappers from sweets he had tried two or three stops ago and a long piece of string which could, at a push, make a cat's cradle. Disappointed he reached for his jacket pockets. There was something bulking in the left seam, something in a bag. He pulled at it and the package slipped into view, the contents tipping onto the floor with a metallic clatter. It was the necklace that Donna had used to bring him out of the globe and back to the reality of the town. 

He stared at it for a moment. The item was present in both realities, did that make it a constant? A tangible item? He crouched beside it and poked the silver chain with the end of his sonic.

"What are you?" he asked the chain. "Trans-dimensional shift enabled artefact? Psychic link to a specific place in space time? Garish silver chain left by someone’s grandma with added hocus pocus?"

He flipped the sonic screwdriver and scanned the chain.  "Whatever you were you don’t have much power left, not enough to get me out of here. But, if I’m very clever, I can use your residual power to generate a hole in the illusion big enough to allow the TARDIS to break through."

The Doctor did his best to make himself more comfortable and started flipping through the settings on the sonic screwdriver searching for just the right harmonic to harness the chain’s energy.   
  
  


Fear held Donna's eyes locked closed.  Frozen through to the bone, her teeth chattered, and she knew she was no longer sitting by the image of her grandfather’s fire. Her throat was tight, and her heart ached, but she knew the Doctor depended on her. Taking a deep breath and forced open her eyelids. A dull blue light filtered up the walls and a gentle presence reached out to her mind, seeking to sooth and reassure. She was lying on a hard surface, staring up into a great arch of knotted organic matter that was a familiar and welcome sight. Donna’s hands dropped from her stomach and onto metal grating, fingers locked through the holes, clinging to reality in desperate relief. It was the TARDIS, it had to be. Inside her mind the Doctor’s voice reassured her.

"You’ve done it, Donna," he said. The tenderness in his tone made her eyes sting.

Donna struggled to her feet, tripping on something soft and dark that lay on the floor beside her. She looked down to see the Doctor’s comatose body lying on the deck.

"We never left the ship."

"No," there was no surprise in his tone. "We've been in a dream world. That would explain a great deal."

"Do you mean none of it is real?" 

"What is reality?" he countered, his tone dark. "My mind is being destroyed from the inside. We were both dying slowly without water or sustenance. Is that real enough for you?"

Donna bent and rested her icy fingers on the Doctor’s neck looking for a pulse. His skin was warmer than hers and with the slow double beat detected she straightened and moved over to the console. With no energy left to speak she stood silent and waited for the Doctor’s consciousness to take over. It took a moment for him to realise what she was doing. 

"I can’t control your body," he told her. "I’m sorry. You have to do this."

A soft sigh escaped her lips, and she nodded. 

Step by step the Doctor talked her through the button pressing, dial turning and switch flipping. Though she could sense his enthusiasm Donna did not share it. Her mind was as numb as her body, she was simply going through the motions. 

"Last one," he told her. "Turn that lever. Hold on to it, no matter what. It will resist.  We’ve turned off most of the safety protocols to broadcast the oscillated sound and extend the TARDIS shields. I’ve had to change the plan a bit, seeing as my body is actually in here, not out there. I, well we, have done a scan of our bodies, yours and mine and..." 

He caught a glimpse of her gaunt reflection in the display screen and paused. 

"Ah… yes, sorry, a bit complicated. But essentially I have conducted an internal scan of the ship and of the life forms in it. You and I have Aetheni inside our minds. You only have a few, and they aren’t thriving in the human brain. My body is teaming with them."

Donna’s hand grasped the lever and pulled it towards her, ignoring the Doctor’s explanation. All she wanted was for this to end. The lever, as the Doctor predicted, resisted. The consol hissed and steamed, a siren wailed. Pulled from her exhaustion by the sounds, Donna put her strength into holding the lever. From inside the console a fierce booming sound rattled the metal floor. A flash of light burst from the centre, a brilliant golden glow that Donna could not shut out even with her eyes screwed shut. The light spun through her head and millions of particles of gold shivered in the surrounding air. As they moved on she saw the same cloud swarmed around the Doctor his inert body filled with the light.

The lever fought harder against Donna’s grip and in her mind she heard the Doctor telling her to hang on. The TARDIS shook and squealed as it started the dematerialisation sequence, writhing as it fought for release. Using a movement she had no intention of performing again, Donna kicked off the handbrake and allowed the ship to take flight.

The golden glow of the Aetheni swept out of the Doctor’s body. He did not stir and the alien molecules swirled in circles, at war with itself. As the great swathe of golden light swung towards the central column, the Doctor’s voice in Donna’s head screamed at her to let go.

The lever flew from her fingers and the Aetheni froze. 

From the floor where she had fallen, Donna stared at the motionless cloud as it hung, paralysed, in mid flight. Like a dust storm, microscopic particles in vast numbers coloured the air in a sandy haze. Donna felt the Doctor’s awe as he observed the creatures and somewhere inside she shared a little of his wonder.  Looking away, her eyes came to rest of the Doctor’s physical form which lay, prone, on the deck. With no energy left to stand Donna crawled to his side and was about to shake him by the lapels when his eyes popped open and his dry lips broke into a broad grin.

With a bound the Doctor was on his feet. Two energetic steps threw him to the console where he swung the display screen into place, scanning the readout and adjusting a dial. Satisfied, he turned back to Donna, beaming lips splitting his face in two.

"Donna Noble, you are officially brilliant!" he declared, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Breaking through their projections, pulling your consciousness from their existence. That… that takes talent."

He swung back to the console and tweaked another setting. Donna’s shoulders sagged and her head dropped to her chest as he turned away, the effort to hold back tattered emotions sapping the last of her spirit.

"Of course, if I’d known we were inside a contemporaneous sphere before the Aethini addled my cognitive functionality I’d have known our bodies were still in the TARDIS," he continued as he pointed the sonic screwdriver behind him and scanned the cloud whilst simultaneously adjusting controls and frowning at the display. "Because now my brain is repairing, I remember that contemporaneous spheres aren’t designed to contain physical matter. Dreamworlds are dangerous places. I try my best to avoid them. It always gets complicated..."

He walked around the cloud, examining it from every direction with glasses whipped from an inside pocket and eyebrows locked in considered scrutiny. 

"...but it worked out in the end. You got back here, boosted the TARDIS shields, ran a modified decontamination programme..."

Finally his enthusiasm gave way to observation and his stopped mid sentence, seeing for the first time Donna’s hunched shoulders and crumpled form. The grin slipped from his lips.

"Donna?" his mouth, suddenly dry, found it difficult to speak her name. 

When she didn’t turn he placed his sonic on the console and walked to her. Dropping to his knees he lifted her chin with delicate fingers until he could see her dulled eyes. 

"We did it," he told her. "You did it. We’re safe now."

She turned her head from his caress and blinked in slow motion.

"Yeah, we did it," she agreed with no hint of celebration, adding with a sigh. "Take this thing out of my head."

"Thing?" he frowned, "Oh! The piece of my consciousness. I nearly forgot."

He raised his hands to her face and reached into her mind.  With the Aethini gone he slipped into a state of calm and the part of him they had shared crossed back into his head. He sat back on his heels feeling it settle back into his mind. Donna struggled to her feet and turned away. She needed to be alone. Though she may have succeeded in returning to the TARDIS guilt sat heavy on her heart. She'd left a man to die alone, delayed her second attempt at escape because she was too upset to try again. Shame heated her pale cheeks. 

"It’ll just take a minute for the effects to wear off. You’ll start to feel yourself again soon," he reassured her. "And in a few seconds I’ll get a download…"

He closed his eyes as a wave of emotions poured through him from the fragment that Donna and he had shared. His eyes widened, his face dropped, a hard lump of pain lodged in his throat. Unable to walk away Donna kept her back to him, knowing from his sudden silence he knew what had happened. 

She heard him move, stand, and cross the deck, Converse soles slapping on the metal grate. His hands rested on her shoulder and she felt tears trickle across her cheeks as her eyes closed. Turning her to face him the Doctor gathered Donna into his arms and held her close against his chest.

"We were played, Donna," he spoke gently, smoothing the hair at the back of her neck. His eyes burned and his brows knitted together. "Played by both sides. They used you to get to me. They needed my knowledge to unlock the spheres, but they couldn’t risk me remembering what the Aethini were. So they tricked us into trying to save a fictional world from an invisible enemy. Used our consciousness to bleed from one sphere to another. But I promise you, Donna. They will never have the chance to do that to anyone else. Never again. I swear."

Donna’s arms reached around his back and she returned his embrace with a bone crushing hug of appreciation. She held the embrace a moment longer than normal then, with a sharp intake of breath she broke away, stepped back and wiping salt water from her cheeks. The Doctor smothered the anger in his face but his eyes smouldered. 

"What are we going to do with them?" she asked, her voice cracked as she spoke but she held her head up high and grit her teeth.

A dark desire for retribution clouded the Doctor’s face. The emotions he shared with Donna were raw, and his anger at the pain inflicted on his companion snarled in his voice. "I can destroy them."

"No!" Donna cried, surprised by her own reaction. "Can’t you contain them somehow?"

"They broke free before." His answer was curt. "I’m not risking that again."

Donna stared from the frozen Aetheni to the Doctor. "There must be another option."

With a frown he strode back to the control panels and ran his fingers along a series of switches, the combination set the Aethini cloud aglow. "There is one place they can go and cause no more trouble."

Donna’s tired face looked up to him, "Where?"

"Inside the TARDIS." He turned the display screen to Donna and pointed at the illuminated diagram. "The heart of the TARDIS is capable of absorbing and containing the spheres. They will be trapped, alive, existing as they do now. Never able to leave."

"And the TARDIS won’t be damaged?"

He shook his head, then shrugged, "She may have indigestion for a week, but trust me, she’s absorbed far worse in her time."

His hand hovered over a button, fingers itching. It was far from the prison the Aethini deserved.

"Wait."

The Doctor raised his hand a fraction, and his scowl deepened. "What is it?"

Donna straightened her shoulders and squared her chin. 

"Let me do it."

The Doctor stared at her, his lips pressed in a thin line.

"Donna…"

"I don’t want to do this because of my Dad," said Donna, interrupting his objection. "Not for what they did to me, or to you, because that would be vengeance. I’ve seen that look in your eyes Doctor, and I don’t want to be that person."

The Doctor’s hand wavered and fell away from the controls. 

"I want to end this to save anyone else from suffering. Piece by piece they were killing us. Using our compassion, our humanity, our friendship against us. I want to show them what it is to be human. I want to show them mercy."

Donna words faded into silence and the Doctor raised his lowered eyes to meet hers. The anger in his face had been replaced with humility, the fire in his eyes quashed and humbled. With the smallest of nods he turned an open palm above the button and he companion moved to face him. 

Her shaking hand extended over the console. She cast a last look back at the Aetheni, admiring their beauty, then lowered her fingers, depressing the button. There was a faint click, a hiss, and the Doctor swooped her away from the console, back to the guardrail, his hand on her arm, keeping her at a safe distance.

From inside the core of the machine came a frantic churning. The central column burned brighter and part of the control desk opened, exposing a brilliant orange light. The Doctor’s hand linked with Donna’s as, with a piercing wail, a lasso of light captured the Aethini and dragged them into the heart of the ship. Around the room circuits and dials spun. Sparks of electricity popped, smoke, or perhaps steam, chuffed from the time rotor, and with a grinding of cogs the control panel groaned shut. The rotor stuttered, a low grumble vibrated the floor at their feet, and then everything went quiet.

Donna released a long held breath. "Is it over?"

The Doctor nodded. "It’s over."

He gave her shoulder a squeeze before crossing back to the controls, flipping two switches and spinning a dial counter-clockwise.

"I’m taking us out of the time stream, don’t want to over stretch the poor old girl while she digests her new components." 

The Doctor gave Donna a broad smile and she found her lips curling in reciprocation.

"So we have time for that luxury holiday spa you promised me?" Donna fixed him with a hard stare. "Dream world or not, that's one promise I won't let you forget."

His fingers danced across the dials once more and a new image of a holiday brochure appeared on the screen. His eyes danced with excitement as he read the advertising speel.

"So, Donna Noble, how do you feel about a trip to Midnight?"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks. Thank you all for reading this story. I will be writting a few shorts in the next months and aim to post a new multi-chapter work over the summer - probably a 12/Donna reunion fic. If you'd like to leave me some feedback to future development I would very much appreciate it. Be well.  
> CG


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